


Dude (Looks Like a Lady)

by nanye_i_arato_angaina



Series: Lady!Cas [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Kinda, Tumblr Prompt, Work In Progress, almost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 18:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 26,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanye_i_arato_angaina/pseuds/nanye_i_arato_angaina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So cinnibunny on tumblr was lamenting the lack of lady Cas at about the same time I had a bit of an idea rolling around in my head. I started writing it down, it got away from me, I ended up here. Mostly canon except details. I dislike titling things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lazarus Rising

Dean had no idea what was going to come through the barn doors (or if it would even bother with them), but judging by the sudden storm outside, it was powerful, whatever it was. Dean was used to being outmatched, though, so that wasn’t a new feeling, and Bobby was standing solidly by side. And Sammy was far away from whatever this “Castiel” thing was. The way that the entire barn shook when the doors began to open, and the way every single light bulb blew out only cemented Dean’s observation of its power.

So Dean was shocked when all that walked through the falling sparks was a petite woman a foot shorter than him. But he remembered Lilith in the little girl’s body, and he fired. He and Bobby alternated shots, but the woman- or whatever possessed her- continued to walk toward them as the lights kept popping. They exchanged worried glances, and Dean moved to the table to pick up the demon knife. As she moved to stand between him and Bobby, the lights stop flashing, and Dean could get a clear look at her. She looked even smaller without the dramatic shadows that the bursting lights were throwing. She barely reached his shoulder, and dark-brown-almost-black hair that should be a mess from the wind that had heralded her arrival was as neat as the skirt-and-blazer and trench coat ensemble she wore, if he ignored the holes he and Bobby had put in it.

“Who are you?” Dean asked, backing up as she continued to move toward him. She looked up at him curiously, earnestly, and ignored the way her back was completely vulnerable to Bobby. Her eyes were wide and honest-looking as she replied.

“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition,” she said, and her voice was high and light. Or it should have been, if it wasn’t for the conviction behind it, and the power in it. Good or bad- and given Dean’s life so far, probably bad- there was much more to her than met the eye.

“Yeah. Thanks for that,” Dean replied, his voice just short of snarling. They looked at each other for a beat, and then Dean lunged forward, burying the demon knife hilt-deep into her chest.

She didn’t react. At all. She just continued to stare at him as he backed away and tried not to look terrified. It was Dean and Booby’s turn to stare as, after a moment, she looked down at the knife stuck through her lapel and pulled it out, bloody, like he pulled knives from a knife block, and dropped it on the floor. He caught Bobby’s eye, and it was the older hunter’s turn to lunge toward her, iron crowbar clenched tightly in his fists. Without turning her piercing blue-eyed gaze from Dean, and with a facial expression that looked only very mildly annoyed, she reached an arm back and caught the crowbar in her hand. She finally turned away from Dean for a moment, and pressed the first two fingers of her unoccupied hand to Bobby’s forehead. The crowbar clattered to the ground as Bobby slumped down, two pairs of eyes on him, one indifferent and one concerned. The two conscious beings looked back to each other when he lay limply on the floor.

“We need to talk, Dean,” she said, her eyes widening again. “Alone,” and she cast her gaze around as if she were worried about Dean’s reaction. Not worried, he decided, only mildly concerned. Whatever this thing was, facial expressions were clearly not her strong suit. She didn’t react when started in inch toward Bobby, and when he crouched down to check his vital signs, her intense stare had moved to one of Bobby’s book on the table. But apparently she could see him anyway, because when he looked back up at her, she spoke without refocusing her gaze.

“Your friend’s alive.”

“Who are you?” Dean asked again, glad, so fucking glad, that Bobby was alive, and absolutely confused by the fact that he she’d left him that way.

“Castiel.”

“Yeah, I figured that much. I mean what are you?”

Castiel looked up from the book and back at him, and he was completely unprepared for her reply.

“I’m an angel of the Lord.”

There were no bells and whistles, no dramatic wind, but the quiet conviction in her voice gave the impression of absolute truth. Dean, however, had long since learned that there  
was no such thing as “absolute” and stood cautiously before speaking.

“Get the hell out of here,” Dean said in disbelief. “There’s no such thing.” He watched with trepidation as she advanced on him.

“This is your problem, Dean: you have no faith,” she said, her blue eyes once again laser focused on his face. Dean stared back as impassively as he could, and then a light from nowhere lit the room as thunder cracked. Castiel’s petite frame seemed to swell as she stood even straighter and squared her shoulders. Behind her, on the wall of the barn, two enormous shadows came into being and spread out over the sigils painted there, elongating and taking a shape Dean recognized.

He flinched as massive, shadowy wings filled his vision and Castiel’s stare intensified even more. He nodded, but not in agreement, and he thought she could tell. Though he could no longer see anything that resembled wings, the way she held herself and the almost electric charge in the air lingered.

Dean was not so easily intimidated, even when in way over his head, and his next words were scoffing, nearly mocking.

“Some angel you are. You burned out that poor woman’s eyes.”

Castiel looked down at the floor, her shoulders slumped slightly, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot.

“I warned her not to spy on my true form,” she said, not quite apologetically as she walked toward him. “It can be- overwhelming to human, and so can my real voice, but you already knew that.”

“You mean the gas station and the motel, that was you talking?”

She nodded her head slightly.

“Lady, next time, lower the volume.”

Now she actually looked apologetic, her eyes drifting from his face before returning.

“That was my mistake. Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong.”

“And what visage are you in now, huh? What, holy tax accountant?”

She looked almost amused at that, and the expression softened her stern face. She glanced down at herself, and fiddled with the tan and black flaps of her overcoat and blazer, both of which were tailored quite snugly to her body. Or her stolen body, apparently.

“This? This is a vessel.”

“You’re possessing some poor bastard?”

“She’s a devout woman; she actually prayed for this,”

“Look, lady, I’m not buying what you’re selling, so who are you really?” he asked skeptically.

Castiel tilted her head to the side, narrowing her eyes as she looked at him, almost confused.

“I told you,” and there was that same conviction in her voice again.

“Right. And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?”

She took one long stride toward him.

“Good things do happen, Dean.” She spoke slowly, as if that would make her words make more sense to him.

“Not in my experience,” he said, skepticism warring with disbelief in his voice. Her confused look became searching as she looked up at him, physically tiny but somehow taking up  
far more space than she should.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, her voice softening just slightly, like she cared or something, her head tilting to the other side. Her expression shifted almost imperceptively, as if she’d picked the answer to her question out of his head. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved.”

He huffed out a short breath that was nowhere near a laugh, and asked her why she’d done it.

“Because God commanded it.” Her voice turned firm again, full of conviction and the faith she’d said- correctly- that he didn’t have. Dean swallowed. “Because we have work for you.”


	2. Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester

Only the hunter’s instincts he’d honed over three decades could have alerted Dean to what sounded like nothing more than a strong breeze. He peered around the library before sitting up and surveying the kitchen. Standing there was the same petite, trenchcoated figure he’d last seen in an abandoned barn. He glanced back at Bobby’s couch to see if she’d woken his brother as well, but his eyes were still shut. He walked slowly over to her.

“Excellent job with the witnesses,” Castiel said when he got close. Her voice was still the same paradoxally soft-yet-big voice he thought he’d imagined, because how could a voice sound like that?

“You knew about all this?”

“I was, uh, made aware.”

“Well, thanks a lot for the angelic assistance,” Dean replied bitingly. “You know I almost got my heart ripped out of my chest!”

“But you didn’t.”

“I thought angels were supposed to be guardians- fluffy wings, halos. You know, Michael Landon. Not dicks.”

Castiel looked amused by that, rather than offended.

“Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I’m a soldier.”

Those words coming from such a small, fragile looking woman were almost as bizarre as all the freaky crap Lilith had said with the little girl’s voice, and Dean snorted softly in amusement. He was determinedly ignoring the part of him that was shaking in fear from proximity to the unseen presence that radiated power.

“Yeah? Well then why didn’t you fight?”

“I’m not here to perch on your shoulder. We had larger concerns.”

“Concerns?” he asked, astonishment and disbelief coloring his voice before it dropped to a whisper. “There are people getting torn to shreds down here! And by the way, while all of this is going on, where the hell is your boss, huh? If there is a God.”

“There’s a God.” The voice of absolute fact she’d used before in the barn was back.

“I’m not convinced.”

She looked to one side, and then down, as if trying to gather her thoughts, but Dean continued.

“’Cause if there is a God, what the hell is he waiting for, huh? Genocide? Monsters roaming the Earth? The freaking Apocalypse? At what point does he lift a damn finger and help the poor bastards that are stuck down here?”

“The Lord works-“

“If you say ‘mysterious ways’, so help me, I will kick your ass.”

She threw her hands in the air in exasperation, and it was the most emotion she’d shown yet. There was a silence.

“So Bobby was right? About the witnesses. This is some kind of a sign of the Apocalypse?”

“That’s why we’re here. Big things afoot.”

“Do I want to know what kind of things?”

Castiel considered that for a moment, and told him she sincerely doubted it.

“But you need to know,” she added. “The Rising of the Witnesses is one of the Sixty-Six Seals.”

“Okay. I’m guessing that’s not a show at Sea World.”

“Those seals are being broken by Lilith.” The short woman- angel- looked up at him intently, as if waiting for him to connect the dots.

“She did a spell, she rose the witnesses.”

Castiel nodded.

“Uh-huh. And not just here. Twenty other hunters are dead.”

“Of course. She picked victims that the hunters couldn’t save so they would barrel right after us.”

“Lilith has a certain sense of humor.”

“Well, we put those spirits back to rest,” he said, and there was a hopeful note in his voice, only to have it crushed by Castiel’s next words.

“Doesn’t matter. The seal was broken.”

“Why break the seal anyway?”

She took a noticeably larger breath.

“You think of the seals as locks on a door.”

“Okay; last one opens and-?” He paused expectantly.

She didn’t answer right away.

“Lucifer walks free.” There was a hint of sorrow, of sadness in her voice and on her face. Dean just stared at her.

“Lucifer?” he repeated, raising his eyebrows incredulously. “I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at demon Sunday school. There’s no such thing.”

The look she gave him dispelled the niggling hope that she’d say “Of course not!”.

“Three days ago, you thought there was no such thing as me.” Dean wondered how she knew that he accepted that she was an angel, and he wondered when he’d accepted that she was an honest to, well, God, angel. “Why do you think we’re here, walking among you now, for the first time in two thousand years?”

“To stop Lucifer,” and his words came out as barely more than a breath. She nodded.

“It’s why we’ve arrived.”

“Wow. Bang-up job so far. Stellar work with the witnesses,” Dean jabbed sarcastically. “It’s nice.”

“We tried. There are other battles.” 

Dean exhaled an almost-laugh.

“Other seals,” she clarified. “Some we’ll win, some we’ll lose. This one we lost.” 

He just huffed another unconvinced breath.

“Our numbers are not unlimited. Six of my brothers died in the field this week.” Her voice pitched lower at that admission, lower and more intense as she stepped toward him. 

“You think the armies of Heaven should just follow you around? There’s a bigger picture, here.”

Castiel moved even closer.

“You should show me some respect.” 

Dean had never felt more cowed, more intimidated, by anyone or anything than he did by the soft, high voice. Never had anything in the encyclopedia of big bads he faced on a regular basis, with their psychic throwing abilities and loud threatening voices ever scared the crap out of Dean so thoroughly as the utterly calm, completely sincere words Castiel uttered before vanishing.

“I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in.”


	3. In the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This episode had Cas popping in and out (unlike the previous two, where he was in one continuous scene), so I wrote just those parts, because I think Dean has had to deal with enough female looking monsters that he’d react to Cass the same way he canonically reacts to Cas, at least at first. Right now I’m basically writing down what I see on the actual show, with the exception of Castiel’s vessel (who in this sounds like Liv Tyler as Arwen and is a very tiny person because I like the juxtaposition), so I didn’t write the parts that don’t have Cas, because they happen the same as is canon.

Dean was awakened by the memory of pain. He stared blankly without moving until a soft, high voice spoke, and he turned over to face it.

“Hello Dean.”

Castiel was sitting on the other side of the bed.

“What were you dreaming about?”

Dean was going nowhere near that question; if (because) she’d dragged his ass out of the hotbox, she already knew.

“What, do you get your freak on by watching other people sleep? What do you want?”

“Listen to me. You have to stop it.”

“Stop what?”

She only reached out a hand with two fingers extended, the way she had when she’d rendered Bobby unconscious in the barn.

-

Dean was following his much younger father around a corner when he nearly ran into Castiel.

“What is this?” he asked, breathing somewhat harder than normal, and not from exertion. 

“What does it look like?” was her ever-so-helpful answer.

“Is it real?”

“Very.”

“So, what? Angels got their hands on some DeLoreans? How did I get here?”

She looked over her shoulder, apparently trying to find a way to explain it that he could understand.

“Time is fluid, Dean. It’s not easy, but we can bend it on occasion.”

Which, okay, maybe made sense, but it was about as unhelpful of a reply as possible.

“Well bend it back. Or tell me what the hell I’m doing here.”

“I told you. You have to stop it.”

“Stop what? Huh? What, is there something nasty after my dad?”

Castiel did not react to his question or to the blaring horn, but when Dean looked back from over his shoulder, she was gone.

-

Dean was trying extremely hard to not dwell on the conversation he’d just had with his mother as he drove, and as badly as it startled him, he was almost glad for Castiel’s sudden  
appearance in the passenger seat of his hotwired car.

“So what, God’s my copilot, is that it?”

She didn’t reply.

“Well you’re a regular chatty Kathy. Tell me something. Sam would have wanted in on this. Why not bring him back?”

“You had to do this alone, Dean.”

“And you don’t care that he’s tearing up the future looking for me right now?”

“Sam’s not looking for you,” she said, and it sounded vaguely threatening.

“Alright. If I do this, then the family curse breaks, right? Mom and Dad live happily ever after and Sam and I grow up playing Little League and chasing tail?”

“You realize, if you do alter the future, your father, you, Sam, you’ll never become hunters and all those people you saved, they’ll die.”

He barely hesitated to give his reply.

“I realize.”

“And you don’t care?”

“Oh, I care. I care a lot.”

She squinted at him confusedly in a way that was rapidly becoming familiar. He looked back at the road as he continued.

“But these are my parents. I’m not going to let them die again. I can’t. Not if I can stop it.”

He turned back to Castiel, but she’d vanished once more.

-

Dean had a bit of a warning the next time Castiel appeared from nowhere, but he was too focused on his mother, father, and grandfather lying in the dirt to notice the sound. He  
did turn, though, when a small hand was laid gently on his forearm, and she looked at him sadly, sorrowfully.

-

After a moment, he woke up, breathing heavily and back in the motel room. Castiel was standing a few feet past the end of the bed, her face once again free of emotion, when he  
sat up.

“I couldn’t stop any of it,” Dean said, his voice guilt-ridden. “She still made the deal. She still died in the nursery, didn’t she?”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Castiel said, her voice briefly even softer than usual. “You couldn’t have stopped it.”

He looked across the room at her incredulously before standing.

“What?”

“Destiny can’t be changed, Dean.” Her forehead was wrinkled up with concern as she turned to face him. “All roads lead to the same destination.”

“Then why’d you send me back?” he asked, trying not to let his voice break.

“For the truth. Now you know everything we do.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

She looked pointedly at Sam’s empty bed until Dean did as well, and then back at him.

“Where’s Sam?” heasked.

“We know what Azazel did to your brother. What we don’t know is why, what his endgame is. He went to great lengths to cover that up.”

“Where’s Sam?” This time he asked much more pointedly, beginning to suspect Castiel had done something to him. But she gave him an address with no further prompting, and  
Dean wasted no time gathering his things.

“Your brother is headed down a dangerous road, Dean,” Castiel warned. The threat in her voice went from covert to overt with her next words. “We’re not sure where it leads. So  
stop it, or we will.”


	4. It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester

Dean had been stalled long enough by the bratty astronaut demanding candy that Sam had his gun out and was demanding to know who was in their room by the time Dean got to the door.

“Sam! Sam, wait,” he called when he caught sight of the intruder. “It’s Castiel. The angel.”

She was sitting on the end of his bed, facing the opposite wall.

“Him I don’t know.”

He was a black man who was every bit the opposite of Castiel, who had gotten up and was approaching Sam. Next to Dean, she looked small, but next to Sam, she looked freaking tiny, so Sam’s reaction to her was especially amusing.

“Hello, Sam,”

“Oh my God,” he said, before remembering who he was talking to and backtracking quickly. “Er, uh, I- I didn’t mean that, sorry. It’s an honor, really, I’ve heard a lot about you.” He offered his hand for her to shake. She either was hesitant to do so, or was unsure about what he wanted her to do, but she put her hand in his eventually, and clasped the other around the back, cradling Sam’s large hand between her two delicate ones that matched the handprints on Dean’s shoulders.

“And I you. Sam Winchester. The boy with the demon blood.” She stated it as simple fact, but Sam still looked taken aback. “I’m glad to hear you’ve ceased your extracurricular activities.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” the mystery man said without turning from the window.

“Yeah, okay, Chuckles,” Dean shot at him before turning to Castiel. “Who’s your friend?”

“This raising of Samhain, have you stopped it?” she asked instead of answering his question.

“Why?”

“Dean,” she said, her voice more urgent. “Have you located the witch?”

“Yes, we’ve located the witch.”

“And? Is the witch dead?”

“No,” Sam interjected. “But we-”

“We know who it is,” Dean interrupted.

“Apparently the witch knows who you are, too.” The tiny blue flats she wore made barely any noise as she walked over to the nightstand between the beds. She held up a hex bag. “This was inside the wall of your room. If we hadn’t found it, surely one or both of you would be dead. Do you know where the witch is now?” Dean glanced back at Sam, who jerked his head to the side as if to point out that being dishonest would probably be a bad idea.

“We’re working on it.”

“That’s unfortunate.” Castiel looked over at the still-unnamed but probably-another-angel.

“What do you care?” Dean asked.

“The raising of Samhain is one of the Sixty-Six Seals,” was her reply.

“So this is about your buddy Lucifer.”

The other angel apparently missed Dean’s sarcasm.

“Lucifer is no friend of ours,” he said.

“It’s just an expression,” Dean said in reply the deep-voiced statement.

“Lucifer cannot rise. The breaking of the seal must be prevented at all costs,” the other angel said.

“Great! Okay! Now that you’re here, why don’t you tell us where the witch is, we’ll gank her, and everybody goes home.”

“We are not omniscient. This witch is very powerful. She’s cloaked even to our methods,” said Castiel.

Dean’s surprise and disbelief were echoed in Sam’s next statement.

“Okay. We already know who she is! So if we work together-”

“Enough of this!” the man at the window said decisively, finally turning to face them.

“Who are you and why should I care?” Dean demanded.

“This is- Uriel. He’s what you might call- a specialist,” Castiel replied slowly, as if trying to work out how to describe him. 

“What kind of a specialist?”

The two angels exchanged significant glances without speaking, and Sam and Dean looked warily at them.

“What are you going to do?” the elder Winchester asked suspiciously.

“You, uh, both of you, need to leave this town immediately,” Castiel finally answered.

And that sent Dean’s internal caution-meter from high to skyrocketing.

“Why?”

“Because we’re about to destroy it,” she stated in her typical unemotional voice.

Dean glanced over at Sam, and they were wearing matching I’m-hiding-how-badly-I’m-freaking-out-about-this faces.

“So this is your plan?” Dean said after a moment. “You’re going to smite the whole freaking town?”

“We’re out of time,” Castiel said urgently. “This witch has to die. The seal must be saved.”

“There are a thousand people here,” Sam protested, as if he couldn’t comprehend why the angels would even bother bringing it up.

“One thousand, two hundred, fourteen,” Uriel stated.

“And you’re willing to kill them all?” asked Sam in disbelief.

“It’s not the first time I’ve… purified a city,” Uriel replied.

“Look,” Castiel put in softly. “I understand this is regrettable-”

“Regrettable?” Dean interrupted.

“We have to hold the line,” she continued, much more insistently and meeting Dean’s glare with a blue-eyed stare of her own. “Too many seals have been broken.”

“So you screw the pooch on some seals and now this town has to pay the price?”

“It’s the lives of one thousand against the lives of six billion. There’s a bigger picture here.”

“Right. ‘Cause, uh, you’re bigger picture kind of guys.”

Castiel apparently had had enough of Dean’s digs, and stepped right up into his already limited personal space, their height difference not throwing her in the slightest. He stepped back.

“Lucifer cannot rise. He does, and Hell rises with him. Is that something that you are willing to risk?”

And dammit if she knew he wasn’t. Sam interrupted before the silence he couldn’t answer got too long.

“We’ll stop this witch before she summons any one,” he said earnestly. “Your seal won’t be broken and no one has to die!”

Dean and Castiel continued to stare at one another until Uriel interrupted.

“We’re wasting our time with these mud monkeys.”

That was a new one. Of all of the derogatory things he’d ever heard, that also seemed to offend Sam most- or at least, his preconceptions of angels.

“I’m sorry,” she said, turning away and out of his space. “But we have our orders.”

“No, you can’t do this,” Sam protested, and yep, that was his offended voice. “You’re angels. I mean aren’t you supposed- you’re supposed to show mercy!”

Uriel laughed.

“Says who?”

“We have no choice,” Castiel asserted. But from the look on her face, Dean wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince, and he tried to call her on that.

“Of course you have a choice. I mean, come on! What, you’ve never, never questioned a crap order? Huh? What, are you both just a couple of hammers?”

“Look. Even if you can’t understand it, have faith. The plan is just.”

“How can you even say that?” Sam had moved past offended and now was rapidly approaching disgusted.

“Because it comes from Heaven. That makes it just.”

“That must be nice,” Dean said with thinly veiled sarcasm. The female angel squinted at him in confusion. “To be so sure of yourselves.”

“Tell me something, Dean. When your father gave you an order, didn’t you obey?”

Dean took a moment to think of an appropriate response to that, as he couldn’t deny its truthfulness.

“Well, sorry, boys and girls. It looks like the plans have changed.”

Castiel did what Dean was coming to think of as her signature head tilt that usually meant she didn’t understand something about him.

“You think you can stop us,” Uriel almost-asked, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

“No,” Dean replied with a little shake of his head. He moved toward the male angel as he spoke. “But if you’re going to smite this whole town, then you’re going to have to smite us with it, because we are not leaving. See, you went to the trouble of busting me out of Hell, so I figure I’m worth something to the man upstairs. You want to waste me, go ahead. See how he digs that.”

“I will drag you out of here myself,” and Uriel’s voice was barely above a threat-laden whisper.

“Yeah, but you’ll have to kill me. And then we’re back to the same problem.” His voice became mocking. “I mean, come on. You’re going to wipe out a whole town, for one little witch? Sounds to me like you’re compensating for something.” He turned to Castiel. “We can do this. We will find that witch, and we will stop the summoning.”

“Castiel! I will not let these people-”

“Enough.” She barely raised her voice from its usually soft tone and didn’t look away from Dean, but Uriel ceased. “I suggest you move quickly.”

-

After it all was over, Dean sat on a park bench and just watched the children play. He managed to not jump when Castiel appeared on the bench next to him.

“Let me guess. You’re here for the ‘I told you so’.”

“No.”

“Well good, because I’m not really that interested.”

“I am not here to judge you, Dean,” she said with a softness in her voice that was not from its volume.

“Then why are you here?”

“Our orders-”

“Yeah, you know, I’ve had about enough of these orders of yours.” 

Castiel continued as if he hadn’t interrupted her.

“Our orders were not to stop the summoning of Samhain. They were to do whatever you told us to do.”

“Your orders were to follow my orders?”

“It was a test; to see how you would perform under… battlefield conditions, you might say.” Battlefield conditions kind of described his whole life from the age of four onwards, but trying to imagine Castiel in an actual fight was difficult. Sure, she appeared to be immune to bullets and knives and her stare could probably be fatal, but she looked for all the world like a fancy little lawyer or something, complete with freshly ironed black skirt and blazer and a short blue scarf thing tied around the collar of her white shirt that would make an excellent handhold for an enemy.

“It was a witch, not the Tet Offensive.”

She smiled, and huffed a funny little laugh through her nose, and it made her look a lot more human than her usual stern-and-often-emotionless expression.

“So I, uh, failed your test, huh? I get it.” He took a deep breath. “But do you know what? If you were to wave that magic, time-traveling wand of yours and we had to do it all over again, I’d make the same call. ‘Cause, see, I don’t know what’s going to happen when these seals are broken. Hell, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. But what I do know is this, here- these kids, the swings, the trees, all of it, it’s still here because of my brother and me.”

“You misunderstand me, Dean. I’m not like you think. I was praying that you would choose to save the town.”

“You were?”

“These people, they’re all my Father’s creations. They are works of art.” Dean looked over at her. Yeah, she certainly wasn’t like he thought, not if she might actually care. “And yet, even though you stopped Samhain, the seal was broken and we are one step closer to Hell on Earth for all creation. Now that’s not an expression, Dean, it’s literal. You of all people should… appreciate what that means.” Castiel apparently didn’t need an answer to that, and stared at him for a moment before turning back to watch the children playing. 

When she spoke next, her voice was gentler.

“Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?”

“Okay,” Dean agreed, though he wondered what kind of secret the angel could possibly have that she would share with him.

“I’m not a… hammer, as you say. I have questions, I… I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here. But, in the coming months, you will have more decisions to make. I don’t envy the weight that’s on your shoulders, Dean. I truly don’t.”


	5. I Know What You Did Last Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not very much Cas = not very much Cass

The cabin was shaking much like the barn had the day after he’d been pulled out of Hell. Also like that day, Castiel strode through doors that burst open dramatically without being touched. All that was missing was the exploding lights, though this time Uriel followed Castiel in.

“Please tell me you’re here to help,” Dean asked without much hope. “We’ve been having demon issues all day.”

“I can see that,” Uriel said, looking pointedly at Ruby, whose eyes had gone black. “Do you want to explain why you have that stain in the room?”

The two humans and the demon all looked at each other.

“We’re here for Anna,” said Castiel.

“Here for her, like here for her?” Dean asked warily.

“Stop talking!” ordered Uriel. “Give her to us.” And that was answer enough for Dean as to what they had in mind.

“Are you going to help her?” Sam inquired, evidentially still hanging on to his preconceived notions of angels after the last time he’d come into contact with them.

“No,” Castiel said, her soft voice firm. “She has to die.”


	6. Heaven and Hell

“You want Anna?” Sam asked in disbelief. “Why?”

“Out of the way,” Uriel demanded.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, I know she’s wiretapping your angel chats or whatever, but that’s no reason to gank her,” Dean protested.

“Don’t worry. I’ll kill her gentle,” said Uriel with all the creepy smarminess that he usually got from things that wanted to kill him.

“You’re some heartless sons of bitches, you know that?”

“As a matter of fact, we are,” Castiel said, looking at the ground. She looked up to meet the Winchesters’ incredulous stares. “And?”

“And?” Sam repeated incredulously. “Anna’s an innocent girl!”

“She is far from innocent,” the female angel said, shaking her head gently.

Sam and Dean glanced at one another.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Sam.

“It means, she’s worse than this abomination you’ve been screwing. Now give us the girl,” Uriel demanded again.

Dean asked Sam what he thought, and his little brother made his position in the matter quite clear, both without saying a word.

“Sorry. Get yourself another one. Try J-Date,” Dean replied.

“And who’s going to stop us? You two?” Uriel advanced on them before reaching out to grab Ruby and throw her across the room into the wall. “Or this demon whore?”

Dean went after the larger angel with his shotgun before he could do whatever it was he was planning on doing to Ruby, though it didn’t do anything except distract him. Between the blows he received from Uriel’s fists, he could hear Sam trying to convince Castiel not to do this. He worried about Sam getting the same treatment from her as he was getting from Uriel, but the smaller angel just reached up and touched two fingers to his forehead, the way she’d done to Bobby, and Sam slumped to the floor. Dean was pretty sure that was the best way to describe the difference between Castiel and Uriel, as the former just sent the boy with the demon blood to dreamland while the latter was working out his irritation on Heaven’s golden boy or whatever he was supposed to be.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” said Uriel as he punched Dean yet again. Castiel had her hand on the door handle to the other room before a bright white light filled the cabin and sent both angels packing.

-

Though Castiel always appeared quietly when it was just him, Dean was talking with Sam and Anna when the doors flew open as they had when the whole everybody-wants-Anna-dead thing had begun, and the first time he’d seen her in the barn with Bobby. Sam and Dean bracketed Anna protectively, Sam reaching out an arm to keep the fallen angel behind him.

“Hello, Anna,” Castiel said softly. “It’s good to see you.”

“How?” Sam demanded. “How’d you find us?”

Castiel’s eyes flicked over to Dean, and Sam’s followed them.

“Dean?”

He looked apologetically at the both of them, whispering “I’m sorry” to Anna.

“Why?” Sam asked Dean, but it was Anna who answered.

“Because they gave him a choice. They either kill me or kill you. I know how their minds work.” She regarded Castiel coolly. The brunette angel didn’t meet her former garrison leader’s eyes. Uriel was staring at Anna, but Sam, Castiel, and Anna were all looking at Dean. The redheaded angel placed her hand comfortingly on his arm just below the handprint there. She kissed him gently, and he kissed her back, missing the unfathomable look Castiel was giving them.

“You did the best you could. I forgive you,” she said before turning to the other two angels, her voice determined. “Okay. No more tricks. No more running. I’m ready.”

“I’m sorry,” Castiel offered after a pause during which nobody moved.

“No. You’re not. Not really. You don’t know the feeling,” Anna told the shorter angel.

“Still, we have a history. It’s just-” Castiel’s softer than normal justification was drowned out by Anna’s much more forceful interruption.

“Orders are orders. I know. Just make it quick.”

Nobody moved for a second, and then an unknown voice interjected.

“Don’t you touch a hair on that poor girl’s head.”

Behind Alistair stood two others Dean thought were probably demons as well, supporting a very unstable-looking Ruby whose shirt was covered in blood. Sam, Dean, and Anna moved to the side as Uriel strode toward the demons.

“How dare you come in this room, you pussing sore.”

“Name calling. That hurt my feelings, you sanctimonious, fanatical prick,” Alistair replied.

“Turn around and walk away now,” and Dean had never heard Castiel’s voice so threat-laden, not even when she’d threatened to throw him back into Hell. He and Sam continued to stand protectively between Anna and everyone else.

“Sure. Just give us the girl. We’ll make sure she gets punished good and proper.”

“You know who we are and what we will do.” Castiel walked forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Uriel, her figure hardly imposing, especially next to him, but her voice more than made up for it. “I won’t say it again. Leave. Now. Or we lay you to waste.”

“I think I’ll take my chances,” sneered Alistair. Neither of the fully-powered angels moved for a beat, and then Uriel went after the two lackeys and began throwing them around. Castiel simply reappeared within an arm’s length of Alistair and punched him several times in the face before reaching up and slapping her hand onto the demons forehead.

“Sorry, kiddo,” he said when nothing happened. “Why don’t you go run to Daddy?” As Alistair landed a punch that had Castiel flat on her back, Uriel got his palm on the head of one of the other demons, who screamed as a yellowish light burned though his eyes and mouth before he collapsed. Alistair had Castiel by the throat and was chanting something in Latin as Dean moved forward and whacked him solidly on the back of his head with his shotgun.

“Dean, Dean, Dean,” the demon said as he stood. “I am so disappointed. You had such promise.” He flung out his hand toward Dean, and then neither he nor Sam could breathe. Uriel was distracted taking care of the other demon, and Anna took the chance to grab the vial of her grace from around his neck.

“No!” he protested, but she’d already thrown it on the ground. White light burst into a cloud around her feet and began to trail up into her mouth, like the reverse of what happened when Sam exorcised a demon with his brain.

“Shut your eyes!” she yelled as she began to glow white. “Shut your eyes! Shut your eyes!” Sam and Dean managed to get their arms over their eyes, despite Alistair’s attempt to choke them to death, and Ruby was quick to do so as well. Alistair just looked over at her in mild confusion. Uriel’s face had settled back into its default mildly irritated expression, but Castiel was looking at her restored sister from where she was sitting on the floor with something that was almost awe. Alistair attempted to move toward Anna, but he was vaporized or something by the light before he even got close. Anna was gone when the light and the wind ceased.

“Well, what are you guys waiting for?” Dean asked after picking up Ruby’s knife that Alistair had dropped. “Aren’t you going to go get Anna? Unless, of course, you’re scared.”

“This isn’t over,” Uriel said angrily, but Castiel put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Oh, it looks over to me, Chuckles," Dean said.

Castiel gave Dean one last long, searching look before the angels disappeared.


	7. Death Takes a Holiday

Dean was backing slowly away from the demon he most loathed when Alistair was struck by lightning. When he looked up again, the demon was gone.

“What the hell?” he asked no one in particular.

“Guess again,” a soft voice said from behind him. He turned around rapidly to see Castiel damn near smirking at him.

“What just happened?” he asked her.

“You and Sam just saved a seal,” she replied, and she almost sounded proud. “We captured Alistair. Dean, this was a victory.”

“Well, no thanks to you.”

“What makes you say that?” she asked, squinting at him.

“You were here the whole time?”

“Enough of it.”

“Well, thanks for your help on the rock salt.”

“That script on the funeral home, we couldn’t penetrate it.”

“That was angel-proofing,” said Dean in realization.

“Why do you think I recruited you and Sam in the first place?”

“You recruited us?”

“That wasn’t your friend Bobby who called, Dean. It wasn’t Bobby who told Sam about the seal.”

“It was you.” And that right there had to be the best demonstration of Castiel’s angel powers, to get her soft, high voice that was lacking any regional accent to mimic Bobby’s deeper, gruffer voice.

She nodded.

“If you want our help, why the hell didn’t you just ask?”

“Because whatever I ask, you seem to do the exact opposite.” She sounded irritated, but Dean didn’t have a good rebuttal to that, as it was generally true.

“So what now, huh? The people in this town, they’re just going to start dying again?”

“Yes.”

“These are good people. Don’t you think you could make a few exceptions?”

“’To everything there is a season’,” she recited.

“You made an exception for me.”

“You’re different.”


	8. On the Head of a Pin

Because I am going in order in my female-vessel Castiel AU, this would be where my rendition of “On the Head of a Pin" would be, but that episode freaks me out. So this post is only here on the off chance that I ever do write it, so that I don’t have to go back and reorganize everything after it. Have a lovely day!


	9. The Monster at the End of This Book

Dean was getting progressively more irritated with Chuck and had shoved him against the wall angrily when a third voice spoke from behind him.

“Dean! Let him go!” Castiel said, her soft voice insistent. “This man is to be protected.”

“Why?”

“He’s a prophet of the Lord.” She was straight-faced and completely serious.

“You-” Chuck spluttered. “You’re Castiel. Aren’t you?”

“It’s an honor to meet you, Chuck,” the angel said sincerely. “I… admire your work.”

“Whoa, whoa, what, this guy? A prophet? Come on, he’s practically a penthouse forum writer. Did you know about this?” He directed the last sentence at Chuck, who was opening yet another bottle of alcohol.

“I, uh, might have dreamt about it.”

“And you didn’t tell us?”

“It was too preposterous. Not to mention arrogant! I mean, writing yourself into the story is one thing, but as a prophet? That’s like, M. Night level douchey-ness.”

Dean spoke more quietly to Castiel, who was perusing one of Chuck’s books.

“This is the guy who decides our fate?”

“He isn’t deciding anything. He’s a mouthpiece, a conduit for the inspired word.”

“The word? The Word of God? What, like the New New Testament?”

“One day, these books, they’ll be known as the Winchester Gospel.”

“You gotta be kidding me.” Dean and Chuck said in disbelieving unison.

“I am not… kidding you,” she replied, squinting at Dean.

“If you’ll both excuse me for a minute,” Chuck said hurriedly as he shuffled quickly out of the room and up the stairs.

“Him? Really?”

“You should have seen Luke,” Castiel said, and it was one of those lines that, had they come from just about anybody else, would have been extremely funny.

“Why’d he get tapped?”

“I don’t know how prophets are chosen. The order comes from high up on the celestial chain of command.”

“How high?”

“Very.”

“Well, whatever. How do we get around this?”

“Around what?”

“This Sam/Lilith love connection. How do we stop it from happening?”

Evidently, angels were not immune to the human habit of looking at the ceiling when they didn’t know how to answer a question. Though that could have been because they were actually looking to someone, not at the ceiling, but it was still mildly amusing to see Castiel do it.

“What the prophet has written can’t be unwritten,” she started eventually. “As he has seen it, so it shall come to pass.”

-

Dean was taking his anger with Sam’s choices out on the vending machine when he had an idea.

“Okay. I feel stupid doing this, but I am fresh out of options. So please, I need some help. I’m praying, okay? Come on! Please?”

A massive rushing sound barely preceded Castiel’s words.

“Prayer is a sign of faith. This is a good thing, Dean.”

“So does that mean you’ll help me?”

“I’m not sure what I can do.”

Dean was fairly sure that the hope that was suddenly blossoming was written all over his face, but Lilith and Sam in the same place was a bad idea, and he didn’t so much care at the moment.

“Drag Sam out of here, now, before Lilith shows up!”

“It’s a prophecy. I can’t interfere.”

“You have tested me and thrown me every which way and I have ever asked for anything. Not a damn thing. But now I’m asking. I need your help. Please.” Dean didn’t like begging, but his pleas degenerated from asking when they weren’t successful.

She glanced up at the sky again.

“What you’re asking, it’s not within my power to do.”

Dean began speaking almost before she’d finished.

“Why, because it’s divine prophecy?”

“Yes!” said Castiel, returning the favor.

“So what, we’re just supposed to sit around, and- and wait for it to happen?”

Castiel stared at him instead of answering, as if she was doing the thing where she pulled an answer from inside his head.

“I’m sorry.”

“Screw you. You and your mission, your God. If you don’t help me now, when the time comes and you need me, don’t bother knocking.”

Dean was already walking away, and so his heavy footsteps drowned out her especially quiet “Dean”.

“Dean!” she called again, louder and more insistent but without turning to look at him.

“What?” he bit back angrily.

She turned to face him.

“You must understand why I can’t intercede. Prophets are very special, they’re protected.”

“I get that.”

She raised her eyebrows significantly at him.

“If anything threatens a prophet, anything at all, an archangel will appear to destroy that threat. Archangels are fierce. They’re absolute. They’re Heaven’s most terrifying weapon.”

And Dean was starting to get where she was going with this.

“And these archangels. They’re tied to prophets?”

“Yes.”

“So if a prophet was in the same room as a demon-”

“Then the most fearsome wrath of Heaven would rain down on that demon,” she said before looking away. “Just so you understand why I can’t help.” She looked back at him sideways, as if making doubly sure that he knew what she was saying.

“Thanks, Cass,” Dean said sincerely.

“Good luck.”


	10. The Rapture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is my first major deviation from canon, as female vessel = no Jimmy = OC time. Yay.

Dean was fishing peacefully as he never has in real life when a sound like rustling wings forewarned him of Cass’ arrival.

“We need to talk,” she said, her soft voice nearly concealing her worry.

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”

“It’s not safe here. Some place more private.”

When he glanced up at her for that, her forehead was wrinkled into fine lines.

“More private? We’re inside my head.”

“Exactly. Someone could be listening.”

“Cass, what’s wrong?”

She pulled a slip of paper out of a pocket in her ever-present trench coat and handed it to him. Her voice was quietly urgent when she spoke next.

“Meet me here. Go now.”

-

Evidence of an angel fight and Cass’ prone body had Dean freaking out, but that obviously wouldn’t help anybody, so he squashed it down.

“Cass? Cass! Hey! Cass!” he called as he shook her by the shoulder gently. She startled and tried to sit up and roll away from him at the same time.

“What’s- what’s going on?” she asked, her voice lower than normal.

“Just take it easy, take it easy,” Dean said, supporting her by the arm.

“No,” she muttered, but not in reply to Dean’s reassurances.

“Cass, you okay?” Sam asked as she stood and faced them.

“Castiel,” she repeated. “I’m not Castiel. It’s me.”

“Who’s me?” Sam insisted.

“Jordan. My name’s Jordan.”

“Where the hell is Castiel?” demanded Dean.

“She’s gone.”

-

Watching Jordan scarf down peperoni pizza like there was no tomorrow and looking nothing like Cass even though she was wearing her face- or rather, had control of her own face back- was one of the more bizarre things Dean had witnessed in a life full of bizarre things.

“Do you mind slowing down there? You’re going to give me a stomach ache,” Dean protested.

“I’m hungry,” she said defensively.

“When’s the last time you ate?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know, months,” she replied around the straw in her heavily sugared lemonade.

The only sound for the next couple of minutes was chewing and slurping. Sam and Dean kept glancing at each other and then back at the short woman making those sounds. Sam spoke again eventually, curiosity apparently getting the best of him.

“What the hell happened back there? It looked like an angel battle royal.”

“All I remember was there was a flash of light and I was just, like, me again.”

“So what, Cass just ditched out of your meatsuit?” Dean asked.

“I really don’t know,” Jordan said through a mouthful of crust, shrugging shoulders that, for the first time Dean had seen, were not covered with a carefully tailored tan coat.

“Do you remember anything about being possessed? Anything at all?” Sam inquired.

“There are bits and pieces. I mean, angel inside you, it’s kind of like being chained to a comet.”

Dean raised his eyebrows.

“Well, that doesn’t sound like much fun,” he said.

“Understatement,” she replied emphatically, raising her own eyebrows for emphasis.

“Cass said she wanted to tell us something. Please tell me you remember that,” Sam pled.

“Sorry,” was her only reply. When she shook her head, dark brown waves that had stayed perfect her entire time as Cass fell out of place.

“Come on, what do you know?” Dean asked, just shy of politely.

“My name is Jordan Lynn Ainslie. I’m from Chicago, Illinois, but I lived in the Bay Area for eight years before going back. I live with a tortoise named Bunny, because I may have been a little bit drunk when I named him and I thought it was hilarious. I used to date the boy across the hall, but we’re friends now and I’m married to my job as a criminal prosecutor, which I loathe and adore in equal measures.”

An image of that tiny woman, now without that aura of power that Cass radiated, striding back and forth in a courtroom, heels clicking and voice sharp, made Dean want to laugh, but apparently she’d gotten that reaction too often in the past, and glared at him before shoving the last bite of pizza in her mouth and slurping lemonade.

“I’ve played piano since I was four, my parents died a month before I got my undergrad from Stanford, I’m inexplicably terrified of anything small with too many legs, and I’ve spent the last year watching the world go by without me and getting shot and stabbed- some of those times by you, if you remember- and dragged all over this damn planet, and while I know that there can be no good reason that Cass is gone, I am going to enjoy having my body back to myself. I am going to stuff my face with pizza and chocolate, and possibly get completely shitfaced and try to forget about all this for a while. But before I do any of that, I am going to pass out and sleep for about six years.”

-

True to her word, she barely took the time to toe off her shoes before falling into the bed farther from the door, completely clothed from her buttoned blazer to her skin-colored tights. She fidgeted just long enough to get under the scratchy motel sheets, but then a slight raising and lowering of the blankets as she breathed was the only movement she made, even when Dean assigned Sam watch duty, in case she was being deliberately passive and biding her time, and passed out on the unoccupied bed.

-

Either she was much more patient than he’d expected, or she really wasn’t waiting to make a break for it, because when Dean woke up, Jordan was still curled up the way she had been when he’d gone to sleep. Sam, too, was in a nearly identical position in front of his laptop.

“Dude. Are you going to get any sleep?”

“I’m fine, Dean.”

Dean snorted and got up.

When he came back from the bathroom, Jordan was sitting up and stretching, her hair mussed and her clothes wrinkled like they never had been when it had been Cass wearing them.

“Angels make good stylists, don’t they?” she asked around a yawn, apparently catching his gaze. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a hairbrush?” Dean shook his head. She shrugged, and fished a hair tie off her arm from down her sleeve and wrapped the tangled mess into a bun on the back of her head. “If I get any say in what we’re doing today, I vote for breakfast and then buying a new change of clothes.”

Neither Winchester brother opposed the first half of her suggestion, so once they’d all straightened themselves out, they piled into the Impala and Dean drove them to the diner nearby. Jordan ordered a massive stack of chocolate chip pancakes and chocolate milk and still snuck food off Sam and Dean’s plates when she thought they weren’t looking.

They were, of course, but she just shrugged and reminded them that it had been a year since she’d eaten last when Dean raised one inquiring eyebrow at her. They did look surprised, though, when she pulled a wallet out of a pocket inside her blazer.

“What? I had to get the jacket tailored to fit me anyway, I might as well make it useful. It’s cool pulling stuff out the pocket, especially at a dramatic moment during a trial,” she explained, looking only very mildly embarrassed about it.

The brothers looked at her funny again when she offered to pay. “You paid for the motel, and it’s not like I can go home, because they probably all think I died on the two week vacation I said I was going on a year ago. And my emergency I’m-saying-yes-to-an-angel-who-wants-to-wear-my-body-like-I-wear-a-dress-and-I-have-no-idea-what-that-will-entail cash won’t pay for a motel for very long, but I can buy breakfast, especially since I racked up most of the bill.”

Jordan talked a lot more than anyone Dean was used to traveling with, and he wasn’t sure if that fact or the fact that she looked and sounded so much like the angel he was getting to know but absolutely different at the same time weirded him out more. He kept expecting the Arwen-like voice that Cass used, but with how much Jordan talked, he was rapidly getting used to her normal, human-sounding voice.

“Can I go shopping now?” she asked when they were back in the Impala. “You can just drop me off and go do whatever it is Winchesters do when they don’t have to babysit angel-less meatsuits and pick me up later.”

“That, uh, might not be the best idea. We might not be the only ones who try to get information from you,” Sam told her.

“You mean demons, right? Because the angels obviously have no beef with me, since I’m still alive. But that’s even more of a reason to change outfits, because they won’t recognize me as easily!” Jordan exclaimed eagerly, hopefully.

“That would normally be true, yeah, but we’re fairly well known to demons, and they could probably smell the angel on you. But nice try,” Dean said, and it only sounded a little condescending.

“Oh, come on! Give me half an hour. You can wait by the dressing room and glare at anybody who so much looks in that direction. If we all put on sunglasses, you could be my body guards, and we could see how many people assume I’m famous,” she wheedled, apparently not above using her womanly wiles to get what she wanted, and put a hand gently on Dean’s arm and batted her eyelashes at him in the rear-view mirror. Something else must have occurred suddenly to her then, because her voice lost its beguiling edge. “Also, I need a toothbrush.”

And that was how Dean found himself pulling into a Target parking lot instead of driving past it. He had no experience shopping with women, so he took his cues from Sam, who presumably had been shopping with Jessica, and simply followed Jordan. She grabbed a basket and then a toothbrush and toothpaste, and made a beeline for the clothing department, moving fast enough that, had her legs been longer, Sam and Dean might’ve had a hard time keeping up. She came out of the dressing room with a pair of jeans, a tank top, and a pullover sweater, picked up a set of undergarments, and was in the checkout line twenty minutes after they’d walked through the front door.

Jordan changed and brushed her teeth on the way out, keeping on the trench coat and shoes she’d been wearing previously but stuffing everything else into the plastic bag, and broke the silence when they were back in the Impala.

“Ha! Twenty- eight minutes exactly!” she exclaimed after checking her watch, stuffing her bag under the seat and moving to the middle of the back seat to watch the road through the brothers’ shoulders. “Where are we going now?”

“Bobby’s,” Dean said shortly, and that was the last anybody spoke for a while, except to sing along with the tape.

-

It was late in the evening before eventful happened. Jordan was in the gas station bathroom for fifteen minutes before Dean decided that not even the Mexican food they’d had for lunch was to blame and pounded on the door, calling her name.

She didn’t answer.

“Dammit,” Dean muttered, and bent to pick the lock on the door.

“Sam!” he called when he’d gotten it open. His brother hurried over from the Impala, drawing his gun at the tone of Dean’s voice. He yanked the door open, raising his own gun and stepping into the less-nasty-than-usual gas station bathroom. The small window that he’d checked was closed and locked was broken, and Jordan was nowhere to be seen. “Dammit,” Dean repeated.

-

Jordan had never been more sure that she was going to die painfully, and that included that times she’d been shot or stabbed or been in the middle of an angel battle royal. The longer Cass was out of her head, the more she remembered what had happened while the angel was there, and Cass had been the only angel then who seemed to even notice she was there for that confrontation. But now she’d been kidnapped by demons who were going to torture her for information she probably didn’t even have, and she didn’t know how long it would take for Sam and Dean to notice she was gone. So she did something she hadn’t since Cass had gone and she’d come back to herself: she prayed.

Dear Castiel who is probably in Heaven: I know there was a good reason you skipped out on me, probably your brothers and sisters being dicks, as Dean would so eloquently put it, and that’s why I haven’t bothered you before now. But the demons got me, and I really don’t know what kind of information I’ll give them, because, let’s face it, I’m a wuss without your angel mojo and I’ll probably crack in about three seconds flat. So if you could get me out, or get Sam and Dean here, that would be fantastic. If not, you might want to change your passwords, and I apologize in advance for giving them out. Amen.

-

Dean was positive that this was a trap, because what kind of demon left footprints on accident? But as dickish as the angels were, letting demons keep an angel-less meatsuit who would probably spill all the angels’ secrets still seemed like a bad idea. So he and Sam were following demon footprints. A second, much smaller set meant that Jordan was still walking under her own power, which was the closest thing to a silver lining in the whole situation that was nothing but storm clouds.

Apparently forewarned wasn’t forearmed, because they followed the footprints in a big circle and ended up back at the entrance to the gas station minimart, where they were promptly seized and forced in the building by a couple patrons that had picked a bad time to get gas and were now possessed.

“Hi guys!” Jordan trilled with obviously false cheer, a demon possessing a man of normal height who dwarfed her anyway standing menacingly behind her, watching them over her head. “So nice of you to join me!” The demon cuffed her on the side of her head and she winced, bringing up on hand to rub the spot but falling silent as ordered.

“You know, I was actually kinda bummed to get this detail. Picking up an empty vessel, kind of like a milk run. But now look who landed in my lap,” the demon said, the almost sing-song tone of his voice at odds with its rough smoker’s rasp.

“Yeah, well, you got us. Let her go,” Sam insisted.

“Aw, Sam. It’s easy to act chivalrous when your Wondergirl powers aren’t working,” the demon mocked. “Now for the punch line. Everybody dies.” He pulled out a gun and cocked it, pointing it over Jordan’s shoulder at Sam. Dean’s eyes were laser-focused on that gun, as though he could stop it from hurting his brother with them alone, stuck as he was in the grip of another demon.

But the demon with the gun changed targets suddenly, and pointed the gun at Jordan’s temple. Dean had a split second to notice that the panicked look on her face had disappeared before she whirled around, one hand grabbing and breaking the wrist closest to her head, the gun dropping to the floor from a hand that could no longer hold it, and the other flattening on the demons forehead. The light that erupted from him was enough of a distraction for Sam and Dean to begin fighting their way out of the demons’ holds.

The demon Sam was fighting was the one who had taken Ruby’s knife from him, and they ended up in the floor as they wrestled for it. Dean wasn’t doing as well as his brother and was getting whaled on by the third demon until Cass, who had apparently retaken control of her vessel without anyone noticing, exorcised it and it collapsed next to him with a shriek.

Just in time for him to watch Sam bend his head down over the demon he was sitting on as if to kiss her. But when he sat up and turned to face Dean and Cass, all around his mouth was covered in blood. The brothers stared at each other for a moment before Sam turned back to the demon lying on the floor, groaning, and stabbing her in the stomach with the knife he’d reclaimed from her. He turned and stood, and flung his arm up toward Dean, who flinched slightly away, before realizing that Sam was after a demon who’d nearly managed to sneak up behind him, and took a few quick steps back in his direction. Black smoke poured out of her mouth, but when it had gone, she was left breathing heavily and unconscious, but alive. Cass glanced around the minimart, as if to check for any more demons, and then began to walk toward the door.

“Cass, hold up. What were you going to tell me?” Dean asked when she ignored him and Sam.

“I learned my lesson while I was away, Dean,” she said, and the soft, high, unemotional voice that was so different from Jordan’s very human voice was back. “I serve Heaven, I don’t serve man. And I certainly don’t serve you.”


	11. When the Levee Breaks

Dean heard the sound of wings that generally preceded an angel’s appearance from nowhere. He turned to the other end of the garage and sure enough, Cass was standing there, directly under one of the lights hanging from the ceiling as if to be intentionally dramatic, and still wearing the sweater the sweater and jeans that Jordan had changed into when she was still herself under the tan trench coat.

“Well, it’s about time,” he said his voice rough. “I’ve been screaming myself hoarse out here for about two and a half hours now.”

“What do you want?” she asked, her soft voice not at all friendly. She walked toward him.

“Well you could start with what the hell happened in Illinois.”

“What do you mean?”

“Cut the crap. You were going to tell me something.”

“Nothing of import.”

“You got ass-reamed in Heaven, but it was ‘not of import’?”

“Dean. I can’t. I’m sorry.” Her brow was furrowed just slightly, and her voice was cautious even as she answered him with a negative. She wandered away from him. “Get to the reason you really called me. It’s about Sam, right?”

“Can you do it? Kill Lilith? Stop the Apocalypse?”

“Possibly, yes. But as you know, you’d have to take certain steps.”

“Crank up the hell-blood regimen.”

“Consuming the amount of blood it would take to kill Lilith would change your brother forever. Most likely, he would become the next creature you would feel compelled to kill.” Cass looked almost sympathetic even as she laid it out bluntly. “There’s no reason this would have to come to pass, Dean. We believe it’s you, Dean, not your brother. The only question for us is whether you’re willing to accept it. Stand up and accept your role. You are the one who will stop it.”

“If I do this, Sammy doesn’t have to?”

She hesitated.

“If it gives you comfort to see it that way.”

“You’re a dick these days,” Dean accused as he wandered away. He didn’t really have to think about it, but it took him a moment to be able to say it.

“Fine. I’m in.”

Cass’ voice took on a very formal, rote edge to it when she spoke next.

“Do you give yourself, wholly, to the service of God and His angels?”

“Yeah, exactly,” Dean replied without turning around to look at her.

“Say it.”

There was a very odd look on her face when he did turn around, something like worry, or sadness, or something else Dean couldn’t name.

“I give myself wholly to serve God and you guys,” he repeated, moving to stand face to face with her again.

“Do you swear to follow His Word and His Will as swiftly and obediently as you did your own father’s?”

And dammit if she didn’t know right where to hit.

“Yes, I swear.”

The look didn’t leave her face, but she examined his face as if it would tell her how truthful he’d been.

“Now what?” He asked when she didn’t say anything else.

Cass swallowed.

“Now you wait, and we call on you when it’s time.”

-

Cass didn’t feel anything when she waited until Dean and Bobby were sleeping to let Sam out of the handcuffs and out of the room, because as Anna had said, she didn’t know how.

She didn’t feel anything when she shut the door behind Sam, to keep the illusion that Sam was still in there intact as long as possible.

She didn’t feel anything when she locked the door again for the same reason.

She didn’t feel anything when she left Bobby’s, orders carried out, and stood by the water, staring into its murky depths.

She didn’t feel anything when Anna appeared behind her and began questioning her actions.

She didn’t feel anything when she called two of their brothers to take Anna back where she should be.

She didn’t feel anything when she went back to gazing at the water as if it has answers to questions she wasn’t asking.

She didn’t feel anything.

She had orders.


	12. Lucifer Rising

Dean was getting yelled at by Bobby in his study one second, and the next he was in a very quiet, very ornate room he’d never seen before in his life. He looked around for a moment before a soft voice spoke behind him.

“Hello Dean,” Cass said, her body language unusually closed off. “It’s almost time.”

-

Some time later, a pile of hamburgers and a bucket of beers on ice appeared on the table in the middle of the room, but he didn’t get much farther than examining them before he was interrupted by another “Hello, Dean”.

Zachariah’s voice was much less pleasant than Cass’.

“You’re looking fit,” the balding angel continued.

“Well, how ‘bout this? ‘The Suite Life of Zach and Cass’.” Dean wasn’t really sure why they reminded him of that, but the looks of confusion on their faces were great. “It’s a… nevermind. So what is this? Where the hell am I?”

“Call it a- green room. We’re closing in on the grand finale here. We want to keep you safe before showtime. Try a burger. They’re your favorite! From that seaside shack in Delaware? You were eleven, I think.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“No? How about Ginger from season two of Gilligan’s Island? You do have a thing for her, don’t you?”

Dean tried really hard to not look like he was considering it, but he thought he probably failed.

“Tempting! Weird.”

“We’ll throw in Mary-Ann for free,” Zachariah offered.

Dean spoke before his offers got any weirder.

“No. No, let’s bail on the holo-deck, okay? I want to know what the game plan is.”

“Let us worry about that,” the balding angel said just short of condescendingly. “We need you… focused. Relaxed.”

“Uh-huh. I’m about to be pissed and leaving, so start talking, Chuckles.”

Cass remained standing stock still and emotionless on the other side of the room while Zachariah came up with an answer.

“All the seals have fallen. Except one,” he said, walking around Dean. Dean turned toward him.

“That’s an impressive score,” he said sarcastically. “That’s, that’s right up there with the Washington Generals.”

“You really think sarcasm’s appropriate, do you? Considering you started all this?”

Dean stared back instead of replying.

“The final seal- it’ll be different.”

“Why?”

“Lilith has to break it. She’s the only one who can. Tomorrow night, midnight.”

If they- he could just-

“Where?” he demanded.

“We’re working on it.”

“Well work harder.”

“We’ll do our job, and you just make sure you do yours.”

“Yeah, and what is that exactly? If I’m supposed to be the one that stops her, how? With the knife?”

“All in good time.”

“Isn’t now a good time?”

“Have faith.”

“What? In you? Give me one good reason why I should.”

“Because you swore your obedience.” Zachariah stepped right up into his personal space, and he’d had enough of this particular angel about five minutes ago, so he wasn’t endearing himself to Dean the longer they were in the same room. “So obey.”

Dean knew Zach had a point, but that didn’t make it any easier. Dean glanced over the angel’s shoulder at Cass. Her gaze flicked back and forth from his face to the floor as she lowered her head, the muscles around her mouth tightening almost imperceptivity with an emotion he couldn’t recognize but thought she’d gone back to not feeling.

-

Cass was looking the angel statuette he’d just knocked over when she appeared behind him.

“You asked to see me?”

He fidgeted for a second when her eyes met his and then cleared his throat before speaking.

“Yeah, listen, I, uh, need something.”

“Anything you wish,” she said, gesturing with her arms.

“I need you to take me to see Sam.”

“Why?” she asked, sounding a lot less willing.

“There’s something I’ve got to talk to him about.”

“What’s that?”

“The BM I took this morning,” he said sarcastically, walking toward her. “What’s it to you? Just make it snappy.”

“I don’t think that’s wise,” she said, looking away from him.

“Well, I didn’t ask you for your opinion.”

She looked back up at him as she moved closer to him.

“Have you forgotten what happened the last time you met?”

“No. That’s the whole point. Listen. I’m going to do whatever you mooks want, okay? I just want to tie up this one thing. Five minutes, that’s all I need,” he wheedled.

She barely paused.

“No.”

Dean was taken aback.

“What do you mean, no? Are you saying that I’m trapped here?”

“You can go wherever you want.”

“Super. I want to go see Sam.”

“Except there.”

“I want to take a walk.”

She didn’t hesitate.

“I’ll go with you.”

“Alone.”

“No.” Her voice allowed no arguments.

“You know what, screw this noise. I’m out of here.”

“Through what door?” she asked as he walked toward it.

He turned back to look at her questioningly. He turned back to the door, only to find a wall in its place, a candelabra sitting on a table in front of it, little flames burning merrily like they’d been there the whole time.

Cass was gone when he tried to look back at her.

-

Dean was trying to get ahold of Sam after Zachariah’s revelation about not stopping the Apocalypse and the fact that he was supposed to defeat the devil.

“You can’t reach him, Dean,” Cass said, appearing behind him without the ruffling sound. “You’re outside your coverage zone.”

“What are you going to do to Sam?” he asked without turning, his voice tight.

“Nothing. He’s going to do it to himself.” She moved just into his line of vision.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cass glanced down, her shoulders shrugging ever so slightly.

“Oh, right. Right,” Dean said, walking toward her. “Got to toe the company line. Why are you here, Cass?”

“We’ve been through much together, you and I, and I just wanted to say I’m sorry it ended like this.”

“Sorry?” Dean repeated cynically, irritated. He looked away, and then back, punching her in the face with as much force as he could muster. She turned her head with the blow but otherwise didn’t react. Dean walked a few steps away from the angel, his right hand cradled in his left, and exhaled a pained breath.

“It’s Armageddon, Cass,” he reminded her- as if she’d forgotten. “You need a bigger word than sorry.”

“Try to understand,” her soft voice ordered, getting more insistent as she spoke. “This is long foretold. This is your-”

“Destiny?” Dean interrupted. “Don’t give me that holy crap. Destiny, God’s plan? It’s all a bunch of lies, you poor stupid son of a bitch! It’s just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line. You know what’s real? People. Families. That’s real. And you’re going to watch them all burn?”

“What is so worth saving?” she demanded, advancing on him. “I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, your confusion. In Paradise, all is forgiven. You’ll be at peace. Even with Sam.” Her voice had softened, just barely, when she’d mentioned Paradise, but she couldn’t keep eye contact after she mentioned Sam. Dean leaned over and reestablished that contact, making sure she was looking right at him.

“You can take your peace, and shove it up your lily-white ass. ‘Cause I’ll take the pain, and the guilt, I’ll even take Sam as is. It’s a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in Paradise. This is simple, Cass!” he said as she turned and moved a couple steps away. “No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it. Look at me!” He grabbed her shoulder and forced her to face him. “You know it! Now you were going to help me once, weren’t you? You were going to warn me about all this before they dragged you back to bible camp. Help me now! Please!”

“What would you have me do?” she asked after a moment of hesitation.

He answered immediately.

“Get me to Sam! We can stop this before it’s too late!”

“I can’t do that. We will all be hunted. We’ll all be killed!” she protested, her voice dropping with urgency.

Dean’s voice softened, but lost none of his own urgency.

“If there is anything worth dying for, this is it.”

She shook her head, more apologetically than negatively.

“You spineless, soulless sonuvabitch,” Dean declared, walking away in disgust. “What do you care about dying, you’re already dead. We’re done.”

“Dean,” she said, softly again.

“We’re done,” he repeated.

She was gone when he looked back.

-

Dean had finally given in and picked up a hamburger, but there was a hand on his shoulder before he got it to his mouth. Cass whirled him around and shoved him up against the wall, one delicate hand covering his mouth. Her eyes bore into his as her other hand pulled Ruby’s knife from one of the pockets on the front of her coat. He answered the question there with a miniscule nod, and she removed her hand from his mouth. He watched in confusion as she ran the knife along the skin of her forearm, the sleeves there pushed up to her elbow by what could only have been her angel mojo. She transferred the knife to that hand, and began smearing the blood that welled up in a circle on the wall with the other. Dean recognized it as a sigil right before Zachariah showed up.

“Castiel! Would you mind explaining just what the hell you’re doing?” he demanded as he advanced on them. She didn’t reply; she slammed her bloody hand into the middle of the sigil. Light burst from it, and Dean covered his eyes. He could still hear Zachariah’s shout, though.

“He won’t be gone long,” Cass said. “We have to find Sam now.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know, but I know who does,” she said, handing him the knife. “We have to stop him, Dean, from killing Lilith.”

“But Lilith’s going to break the final seal!”

“Lilith is the final seal! She dies, the end begins.”

-

“St. Mary’s? What is that, a convent?” Dean asked Chuck when Cass had landed them in his living room.

“Yeah, but you guys aren’t supposed to be there,” the prophet protested. “You’re not in this story.”

“Yeah, well, we’re making it up as we go,” Cass said, and both men looked at her, Dean because her answer sounded more like something he’d say.

A ringing started in his ears, and the light shining through the window got brighter.

“What? Oh man, not again!” Chuck complained as everything began to shake.

“It’s the archangel!” Cass shouted above the noise, putting her hand to his head. “I’ll hold him off! I’ll hold them all off! Just stop Sam!”


	13. Sympathy for the Devil

“Kill you? Oh, no, I’m just getting started,” Zachariah sneered, just before a burst of light filled the room. When it faded and Dean could look up, Cass was standing there, the point of her silvery angel blade sticking out from the front of the neck of one of Zachariah’s grunts. As he collapsed, the other lackey- who was almost a foot taller than her- went after her, swinging his own knife. She ducked around it easily a few times before kicking him into the fence-like divider. She was still wearing jeans and a sweater, but she’d let her hair back down at some point and it swung wildly behind her as she knocked him back and forth. Zachariah just watched in shock as she drew blood and then disarmed the other angel, twisting his arm up his back as she kicked his blade away. She threw him around the room a few more times before pinning him to a shelf with one hand and stabbing him with the other. She let the vessel’s empty body drop to the floor when the light had gone, and approached the other still living angel.

“How are you-” he stuttered.

“Alive?” Cass finished for him. For the first time since Dean had met her, she sounded out of breath. “That’s a good question. How did these two end up on that airplane? Another good question, because the angels didn’t do it. I think we both know the answer, don’t we?” She looked and sounded smug.

“No, that’s not possible,” Zachariah protested.

“It scares you. Well, it should. Now put these boys back together and go. I won’t ask twice,” she demanded. Zachariah stared at her for a moment before disappearing, and it took Dean a moment to realize that he was better. He glanced back at Sam, who was breathing normally and getting up on legs that were whole again.

“You two need to be more careful,” Cass chastened, walking toward them as they stood.

“Yeah, starting to get that. Your angel buddies are bigger dicks than I thought,” Dean replied.

“I don’t mean the angels. Lucifer is circling his vessel,” she said, switching her gaze from Dean to Sam and back again. “And once he takes it, those hex bags won’t be enough to protect you.” She stepped close enough that she could put a hand on each of their chests, and it hurt.

“What the hell was that?” Dean groaned.

“An Enochian sigil. It’ll hide you from every angel in creation. Including Lucifer.”

“What, did you just brand us with it?”

“No, I carved it into your ribs.”

Both Winchesters had to stare at her for a second at that.

“Hey, Cass,” Sam asked. “Were you really dead?”

“Yes.”

“Then how are you back?”

The only answer she gave Dean’s question was the ruffle of feathers as she disappeared.


	14. Good God, Y'all!

“A cell phone, Cass? Really?” Dean asked the angel as she strode down the hallway of St. Martin’s Hospital. “Since when do angels need to reach out and touch someone?”

“You’re hidden from angels now, all angels. I won’t be able to simply-”

“Enough foreplay,” Bobby grouched from his wheelchair by the window. “Get over here and lay your damn hands on.”

There was a pause.

“Get healing! Now!” Bobby clarified.

“I can’t,” she replied, almost apologetically. The other three stared at her. Bobby turned his chair to face her.

“Say again.”

She walked toward him as she answered.

“I’m cut off from Heaven, much of Heaven’s power. Certain things, I can do. Certain things, I can’t.”

“You’re telling me you lost your mojo just in time to get me stuck in this trap for the rest of my life?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shove it up your ass.” Bobby turned back away from them.

“Well, at least he’s talking now,” Dean said in an undertone to Sam.

“I heard that,” Bobby said without looking at any of them as Cass walked back over to them.

“I don’t have much time. We need to talk,” she told Dean.

“Okay.”

“Your plan, to kill Lucifer-”

“Yeah, you want to help?”

“No! It’s foolish, it can’t be done.”

“Oh, well, thanks for the support,” Dean replied sarcastically.

“I believe I have the solution. There is someone besides Michael who is strong enough to take on Lucifer. Strong enough to stop the Apocalypse.”

“Who’s that?” Sam asked.

“The one who resurrected me, and put you on that airplane. The one who began everything,” and she shifted her attention from Sam to Dean.

“God. I’m going to find God.”

-

“God?” Dean asked as he closed the door.

“Yes.”

“God?”

“Yes. He isn’t in Heaven, He has to be somewhere.”

“Try New Mexico. I hear he’s on a tortilla,” Dean replied sarcastically, but Cass actually seemed think he was serious.

“No, He’s not on any flatbread,” she said, her brow wrinkling in confusion.

“Listen, Chuckles, even if there is a God, he is either dead- and that’s the generous theory-”

“He is out there, Dean.”

“Or, he’s up and kicking and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about any of us.” She straightened her shoulders, and her stare became almost a glare. “I mean, look around you! The world’s in the toilet. We are literally at the end of days here, and he’s off somewhere drinking booze out of a coconut, alright?”

“Enough!” she insisted. “This is not a theological issue! It’s strategic. With God’s help, we can win.”

“It’s a pipe dream, Cass.”

She moved up into his personal space, her voice going low and dangerous.

“I killed two angels this week. My brothers. I’m hunted, I’ve rebelled, and I did it, all of it, for you. And you failed. You and your brother destroyed the world, and I lost everything, for nothing. So keep your opinions to yourself.”

Their staring contest after the last pronouncement was interrupted by Bobby.

“You didn’t drop in just to tear us a new hole, what is it you want?”

“I did come for something. An amulet.”

“An amulet? What kind?” And there was the Bobby Dean was used to, had been handing questions to and getting answers from for years.

“Very rare, very powerful. It burns hot in God’s presence. It’ll help me find Him.”

“Like, God EMF?” Sam asked, speaking for the first time since they’d shut themselves in Bobby’s room. Cass nodded.

“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I got nothing like that.”

“I know you don’t,” she said, turning from Bobby to Dean, her eyes focusing on his face for a moment before they dropped to his chest. He glanced down at the amulet that hung there, that Bobby had given Sam and Sam had given him.

“What, this?”

“May I borrow it?”

“No!”

“Dean. Give it to me.”

Very reluctantly, he replied.

“Alright, I guess.” And he took it off slowly. But before he handed it over, he spoke again. “Don’t lose it.” She wrapped her fingers delicately around it and lowered her hand. “Oh, great. Now I feel naked.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

She disappeared.

“When you find God, tell Him to send legs!” Bobby shouted after her.


	15. Free to Be You and Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of canon divergence in this one.

Dean had been well aware of the angels’ ability to pop out of nowhere for a while now, but that didn’t stop him from flinching when he caught sight of Cass in the mirror, standing right behind him.

“Don’t do that!”

“Hello Dean.”

When he turned to face her, there were barely a couple of inches between their faces.

“Cass. We’ve talked about this. Personal space.”

“My apologies,” she said, stepping back to a semi-reasonable distance.

“How’d you find me? I thought I was flying below the angel radar,” he asked, walking back to his duffel bag on the foot of the bed.

“You are. Bobby told me where you were,” she said as she examined the room. “Where’s Sam?”

Dean didn’t answer right away.

“Me and Sam are taking separate vacations for a while.” He paused. “So, did you find God yet? More importantly, can I have my damn necklace back, please?”

“No, I haven’t found Him. That’s why I’m here. I need your help.”

“With what? God-hunt? I’m not interested.”

“It’s not God. It’s someone else.”

“Who?”

“It’s an archangel. The one who killed me.”

“Excuse me?”

“His name is Raphael.”

“You were wasted by a teenage mutant ninja angel?”

She ignored the jest.

“I have heard whispers that he’s walking the Earth. This is a rare opportunity.”

“For what? Revenge?”

“Information.”

“So, what, you think if you find this dude, he’s just going to spill God’s address?”

“Yes. Because we are going to trap him and interrogate him.”

“You’re serious about this,” Dean said, not quite as a question but not a statement, either.

She didn’t reply verbally, but she turned to face him, and the look in her eyes was answer enough.

“So, what? I’m Thelma and you’re Louise, and we’re just going to hold hands and sail off this cliff together?”

Cass didn’t answer that question because she was too busy looking at him in confusion.

“Give me one good reason why I should do this.”

“Because you’re Michael’s vessel, and no angel will dare harm you.”

“Oh, so I’m your bullet shield?”

“I need your help because you are the only one who will help me,” she said, carefully and very emphatically. “Please. “

“Alright, fine,” Dean replied after a moment. “Where is he?”

“Maine. Let’s go.”

She lifted two fingers, but he moved out of the way before she could put them to his head.

“What?” she asked, lowering her hand.

“Last time you zapped me some place, I didn’t poop for a week. We’re driving.”

-

When Dean had stopped to put on his “government official” suit, he’d insisted that Cass change back into what she’d been wearing when he’d first met her, the more FBI-esque skirt and jacket that were still in a bag under the back seat where Jordan had changed out of them, and the sweater and jeans had taken their place in the bag, which was now stashed in the trunk. They got out of the Impala in Waterville, Maine after one of the oddest drives of his life.

“And we’re here, why?”

“A deputy sheriff laid eyes on the archangel.”

“And he still has eyes? Alright, what’s the plan?”

Cass shrugged.

“We’ll tell the officer he witnessed an angel of the Lord. And the officer will tell us where the angel is.”

“You’re serious? You’re going to walk in there and tell him the truth?”

“Why not?” and she seemed genuinely confused.

“Because. We’re humans,” he answered, pulling a pair of IDs out of his pocket. “And when humans want something really, really bad, we lie.” He tucked their respective fake badges into the inside pockets on both of their jackets, buttoned the top button on her collar, and fixed the little scarf thing she wore more or less like a tie.

“Why?”

“Because. That’s how you become president.”

-

“Deputy Framingham? Hi. Alonzo Mosley, FBI, and this is my partner, Denise Walsh.” Dean tucked his badge back inside its pocket. “Also FBI,” he hinted. Cass eventually figured it out, and fumblingly pulled her badge out. Upside down. Dean tried really hard to keep his face straight as he reached out and flipped it right side up. “She, uh, she’s new,” he explained- which technically wasn’t a lie. Not that the number of lies he was telling mattered. “Mind if we ask you a few questions?”

“Yeah, sure. Talk here, though. Hearing’s all blown to hell in this one,” the deputy said as he led them to his office, gesturing at one ear and then the other while Dean gave Cass a look behind his back.

“That happen recently?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. The gas station. Why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is,” Dean lied as they sat down. “You mind just, uh, running us through what happened?”

“A call came in, disturbance out at the pump-and-go on Route 4.”

“What kind of disturbance?”

“Would not have believed my eyes if I had not seen it myself. We’re talking a riot. Full-scale.”

“How many?”

“Thirty, forty. In all out kill-or-be-killed combat.”

“Any idea what set them off?

“It’s angels and demons, probably,” Cas said, speaking for the first time in what was probably supposed to be an aside to Dean, but ended up being plenty clear to the deputy, who gave her an odd look. “They’re skirmishing all over the globe,” she continued, as if to clarify. Dean rolled his eyes.

“Come again?” Framingham asked. “What did she say?”

“Nothing,” Dean reassured at the same time Cass repeated “Demons.” They looked at each other, and did it again, each a bit louder, trying to answer over the other.

“Demons. You know, drink, adultery. We all have our demons, Walt, right?” Dean tried to salvage.

“I guess,” the deputy said, still looking at Cass oddly.

“Anyway, what happened next?”

“Freaking explosion, that’s what! Oh, they said it was one of those underground gas tanks, but, uh, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“It wasn’t your usual fireball. It was-”

“Pure white,” Cass interrupted, leaning forward.

“Yeah,” Walt confirmed, looking at her in surprise. She and Dean glanced at each other. “The gas station was leveled. Everyone was- It was just horrible. And I see this one guy, kneeling there, real focused-like, and not a damn scratch on him.”

“You know him?”

“Donny Finnerman, a mechanic there.”

“And let me guess, he just vanished into thin air?”

“Uh, no, Kolchak, he’s down at St. Pete’s.”

“St. Pete’s,” Cass repeated importantly, as if he’d missed it.

“Thank you,” Dean replied, unsure of how else to respond

-

“I’m guessing that’s not Raphael anymore,” Dean said later as they stood watching a man in a wheelchair through the window.

“Just an empty vessel.”

“So is this what I’m looking at if Michael jumps my bones?”

“No, not at all. Michael is much more powerful. It’ll much worse for you.

-

Dean had had time to find an empty house in which to set up base and change back into his normal clothes by the time Cass returned.

“Where have you been?”

“Jerusalem.”

“Oh, how was it?” he asked, faux-conversationally.

“Arid,” she replied, setting an old pitcher on the table.

“What is that?”

“It’s oil. It’s very special, very rare,” she said before sitting down, her scarf and top button loose again.

“Great. We’re going to trap Raphael with a nice vinaigrette?”

“No.”

She didn’t elaborate.

“So, this ritual of yours, when’s it got to go down?”

“Sunrise.”

“Tell me something. You keep saying we’re going to trap this guy, but isn’t that kind of like trapping a hurricane with a butterfly net?”

“No, it’s harder.”

“Do we have any chance of surviving this?”

“You do.”

“So, odds are, you’re a dead woman tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Well, last night on Earth, what, uh, what are your plans?”

“I just thought I’d sit here quietly.”

“Dude, come on. You might be able to sit there quietly all night, but I sure as hell can’t. If there’s one thing this crazy-ass life has taught me, it’s that booze does wonders for that the-world-is-ending feeling. So come on. We’re going to find a bar, and we’re going to attempt to get you drunk.”

Cass looked at him perplexedly, but stood and followed him to the Impala anyway.

-

Getting Cass drunk was going to be considerably more work than he’d previously thought, Dean decided when she’d downed half a glass of beer in the time it took him to taste his. She’d been shifting around uncomfortably since they’d taken their places on the barstools, and it was the longest, most continuous break in her carefully emotionless façade he’d ever seen.

“Hey. Relax,” he told her. She glanced back at him from her half-hearted survey of the room, which was a bit more upscale than the places he usually hustled pool but not exactly sophisticated.

“This is a den of iniquity. I should not be here.”

“Dude, you full-on rebelled against Heaven. Iniquity is one of the perks.”

The bar tender came back their way, and Dean ordered a couple of whiskeys, since the beer obviously wasn’t going to cut it. And then ordered a few more when she knocked the first two back like she knew what she was doing, one right after the other. He pushed his partly full beer glass over next to her empty one and stood.

“Here, finish that. I’ll be right back. Try not to smite anyone.”

Cass might have looked tiny and helpless, but Dean was more worried about the other patrons in the bar, should the terror that showed on her face get too much. Sure enough, as he made his way back from the bathroom he heard a woman shriek. He was fairly sure that it wasn’t Cass, but he was too conditioned to run toward people needing help to not move back into the bar quickly. A blonde woman who looked as if she’d just stood from the stool next to Cass’ abruptly slapped her hand over her mouth, apparently realizing the scene she was making.

“What the hell did you do?” he asked Cass, after slapping some bills down on the counter and grabbing her elbow to lead her outside.

“I don’t know. She sat down beside me and began asking personal questions, so I just looked her in the eyes and told her it wasn’t her fault that her father Gene ran off. It was because he hated his job at the post office,” she replied, completely straight-faced. They were almost back to the Impala at this point, and Dean busted up laughing. She leaned over with him to see his face.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Ah, nothing,” he laughed, putting his arm around her shoulders. “It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed that hard. It’s been more than a long time. Years.” Dean was still chuckling as they drove off.

-

Just before sunrise found the two of them standing in a hospital room yet again, Cass’ holy oil standing on the table.

“You’re really going to do this, then?” Dean asked her.

“Yes.”

“Then since your less-than-stellar people skills lost you a chance at facing this still partially drunk and mostly hungover, I’ve got a plan B.”

He cupped the side of her face with one hand, and since it didn’t feel like it had the time he’d punched it, he figured that she was willing to let him proceed, despite the confusion on her face. So before he thought about how likely she was to smite him for what he was about to do, he leaned over and pressed his lips to hers. She didn’t respond at first, but apparently at some point during her time on Earth she’d seen enough to realize that he was kissing her.

After a moment, she appeared to figure it out, and she kissed him back and holy crap had this been a bad idea. Her hands framed his face in a vice-like grip that was just short of painful, and it didn’t seem to matter that he was a foot taller than her. He adjusted their angle just a bit, and she let him, but she didn’t release him until he was just short of passing out from lack of oxygen in his brain.

“That, um. For luck,” Dean stuttered when they pulled apart. His eyes kept flicking to her face but they couldn’t stay focused there. She, of course, was completely unflustered. “Should we get on with it?”

Cass nodded, moving to pick up the jug.

“When the oil burns, no angel can touch or pass through the flames, or he dies,” she explained as she poured the oil in a circle around the silent man in the wheelchair.

“Okay, so we trap him in a steel cage of holy fire, but, uh, one question. How the hell do we get him here?”

“There’s, well, almost an open phone line between a vessel and his angel. One just has to know how to dial,” she told him, setting the jug down before bending down to talk into the vessel’s ear. Dean watched her speak unfathomable words that sounded more powerful than her soft voice made them, and then she switched back to English.

“I’m here, Raphael. Come and get me, you little bastard.”

And suddenly Dean wished he had better habits for Cass to pick up, because she was going to get herself killed- again- if she kept this up.

“Just out of curiosity, what is the average customer wait time to speak to an archangel?”

“Be ready.”

She threw a lit match down, and a ring of fire sprung up.

-

“Well that’s a day I’ll never get back,” Dean griped as they pulled up in front of the abandoned house.

“Dean. Wait.” She pushed in front of him and held him back when he opened the front door. They stared at the electricity arcing though the room, the formerly all-but-comatose man standing in the middle of it.

“Castiel,” he said, and Dean wondered if Zachariah was the only angel with a male vessel whose voice wasn’t incredibly deep.

“Raphael,” Cass said as they moved toward the archangel.

“And here I thought you were supposed to be impressive. And all you do is black out the room?” Dean snarked.

“And the Eastern Seaboard,” Raphael corrected as lightning flashed outside, thunder and rain following soon after. “It is a testament to my unending mercy that I don’t smite you, here and now.”

“Or maybe you’re full of crap,” Dean said, and the other angel turned his stare from Cass. Dean flicked his own gaze over to her briefly before refocusing on Raphael. “Maybe you’re afraid God will bring Cass back to life again, and smite you, you candy-ass skirt. By the way, hi, I’m Dean.”

“I know who you are. And now thanks to her, I know where you are.”

“You won’t kill him,” Cass stated, her soft voice unusually harsh. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“But I will take him to Michael.”

“Well that sounds terrifying,” Dean said, in a definitely-not-terrified voice. “It does. But, uh, hate to tell you, I’m not going anywhere with you.” He pulled a beer out of the cooler and popped the top off, turning his back on Raphael to drink it.

“Surely you remember Zachariah giving you stomach cancer?”

“Yeah, that was hilarious,” he said sarcastically, turning to face him again.

“Yes, well, he doesn’t have anything close to my… imagination.”

“Yeah?” Dean asked challengingly. Raphael started walking toward him, and Dean’s eyes flicked down to the floor, over to Cass, and then back to the archangel. “Well I bet you didn’t imagine one thing.”

“What?”

“We knew you were coming, you stupid son of a bitch.”

Cass flicked the lighter on and threw it onto the oily circle, where flames flared up to Raphael’s knees. Dean walked over to stand by Cass again, but Raphael continued to stare him down.

“Don’t look at me, it was her idea,” he said quickly. As accustomed as he had become, albeit unwillingly, to the stares Cass fixed him with, Raphael was a whole other story, and Dean just wanted his attention somewhere else. Cass gave him a look that he usually only got from Sam, a kind of I-can’t-believe-you-just-did-that look, with a bit of why-do-I-put-up-with-you-again. Dean didn’t have a good answer, so he just looked back at her for a second, and then they both turned back to the archangel.

“Where is He?” she asked.

“God? Didn’t you hear? He’s dead, Castiel. Dead.”

Dean and Cass just looked at each other again.

“There’s no other explanation. He’s gone for good,” the archangel continued.

“You’re lying,” Cass said.

“Am I? Do you remember the 20th century? Do you think the 21st is going any better? Do you think God would have let any of that happen if He were alive?”

“Oh yeah? Then who invented the Chinese basket trick?” Dean asked in his usual irreverent manner.

“Careful. That’s my Father you’re talking about, boy.”

“Yeah, who would be so proud to know his kids started the freaking Apocalypse.”

“Who ran off and disappeared. Who left no instructions, and a world to run.”

“So Daddy ran away and disappeared. He didn’t happen to work for the post office, did he?”

Cass looked over at him, and he raised his eyebrows, glad she’d caught that.

“Is this funny to you? You’re living in a godless universe.”

“And? What, you and the other kids just decode to throw an Apocalypse while he’s gone?”

“We’re tired. We just want it to be over,” Raphael said, and his voice lost some of its doom-and-gloom tone, and he did actually almost sound tired. “We just want Paradise.”

“So what? God dies and makes you boss, and you think you can do whatever you want?”

“Yes,” he insisted. “And whatever we want we get.” The doom voice was back, and the windows all burst into pieces, throwing shards of glass all over the room. They both bent over against the onslaught of wind, and Cass threw her arm over the back of Dean’s head and his hands that had come up to protect his face.

“If God is dead, why have I returned?” Cass shouted over the wind and rain and thunder after they’d straightened up, rain coming through the now-empty window frames. It was the loudest he’d ever heard her speak, and he could barely hear her, even though she was yelling right next to his ear. “Who brought me back?”

“Did it ever occur to you,” Raphael asked, and his voice was no louder than it had been before. “That maybe Lucifer raised you?”

“No.” Cass voice didn’t leave any room for doubt.

“Think about it. He needs all the rebellious angels he can find.” Dean looked at her to see how she responded. “You know it adds up.”

“Let’s go,” was her only reply, directed at Dean.

“Castiel. I’m warning you. Do not leave me here. I will find you,” Raphael threatened.

“Maybe one day. But today you’re my little bitch.”

She turned away at that, and walked out of the house without a glance back. Dean paused before following.

“What she said.” And yeah, he might not be the best role model for a de-mojoed angel, but she was pretty badass when she imitated his lack of self-preservation and mouthed off to beings that could squish them both like bugs.

-

Despite the sure-of-herself attitude she’d had going on in the house, she looked awfully pensive as they drove away from it.

“Hey, you okay?”

She didn’t reply.

“Look, I’ll be the first to tell you that this little crusade of yours is nuts, but I do know a little something about missing fathers.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there were times when I was looking for my dad when all logic said that he was dead. But I knew, in my heart, that he was still alive. So who cares what some ninja turtle says, Cass. What do you believe?”

“I believe He’s out there.”

“Good. Then go find him.” She continued to watch him after he looked away.

“What about you?” she asked.

“About me? I don’t know. Honestly, I’m good. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but I am. I’m, I’m really good.”

“Even without your brother?”

“Especially without my brother. I mean, I spend so much time worrying about the sonuvabitch. I mean, I’ve had more fun with you in the last twenty-four hours than I’ve had with Sam in years. And you’re not that much fun. It’s funny, I’ve been so chained to my family. But now that I’m alone, hell, I’m happy.”

She was gone when he looked back over.


	16. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon divergence again.

“You’re talking about the Colt, right? As in, the Colt?” he Cass over the phone when he’d settled himself in the hotel room.

“We are.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would demons keep a gun around that kills demons?”

“What?” he heard her shout over some kind of truck or something that was making more noise than he was. “What? Dean? I didn’t- I didn’t get that.”

Dean chuckled.

“You know, it’s kind of funny, talking to a messenger of God on a cell phone. It’s like watching a Hell’s Angel ride a moped.”

“This isn’t funny, Dean. The voice says I’m almost out of minutes.”

“Okay, alright,” he said more seriously, as it was obviously frustrating her, but he really wanted to bust up laughing. “I’m telling you, Cass, the mooks have melted down the gun by now.”

“Well, I hear differently. And if it’s true, and if you are still set on the insane task of killing the Devil, this is how we do it.” As he had called her self-appointed task insane as well, he didn’t take offence.

“Okay. Where do we start?”

“Where are you now?”

“Kansas City, Century Hotel, Room 113,” he read off the key tag.

“I’ll be there immediately.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, come on. I just drove like sixteen hours straight, okay? I’m human. There’s stuff I’ve got to do.”

“What stuff?” she asked, and she sounded genuinely confused. He could almost hear the squinty confused face she was probably making.

“Eat, for example. In this case, sleep. I just need like four hours, once in a while, okay?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. So you can pop in tomorrow morning.”

“Yes. I’ll just-”

Dean hung up.

-

He almost didn’t recognize the future Cass when he walked into the room Chuck had directed him to. The prophet was more or less how he remembered him, if more sober; future him was a major dick; but Cass, Cass had changed majorly. She lay on the floor on a threadbare rug, spread-eagled and staring at the ceiling. Her dark brown hair was chopped short and unevenly around her ears, and she wore a striped sweater, like the one in his- past- trunk, and a pair of faded black sweatpants that were enormous on her and had been rolled several times at both her waist and her ankles.

“Cass, we gotta talk.”

“Whoa. Strange,” she said, sitting and peering intently at him.

“What?”

“You are not you. Not now-you, anyway.” She reached out a lazy hand, and he grabbed it to pull her to her feet. She continued to peer up at him. He stared back. She was skinnier than his Cass- something that he’d thought was impossible if she wanted to continue functioning correctly. She hadn’t let go of his hand, a little unsteady on her feet, but that could have also been another side effect of whatever was making her voice scratchier than he remembered.

“No! Yes, exactly!”

“What year are you from?”

“2009.”

“Who did this to you? Was it Zachariah?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. Interesting,” she said, one hand going to the pendant of a necklace he hadn’t noticed she was wearing and fiddling with it absentmindedly. She twisted her fingers through the black cord it hung on, and suddenly Dean recognized it. Either this drunk-or-possibly-stoned Cass was still looking for God, or she was a lot more sentimental than he’d thought.

“Oh, yeah, it’s freaking fascinating,” he replied sarcastically. “Now, why don’t you strap on you angel wings and fly me back to my page on the calendar.”

She giggled, a high-pitched, breathy laugh that wasn’t at all happy sounding.

“I wish I could just strap on my wings, but uh, I’m sorry. No dice.”

“What are you, stoned?” he queried disbelievingly.

“Uh, generally, yeah,” she answered with another falsely happy nod.

“What happened to you?”

“Life,” she replied with a shrug, and damn did Dean want to get back home.

But that was when he heard vehicles, and Cass followed him out through a bunch of hanging beads to the driveway, where he watched his future self shoot a man he’d thrown a beer to just a minute or so previously in the back of the head. He’d tried to stop him, but all he’d accomplished was revealing himself. The rest of the group-except Cass- stared at the two Deans.

“Dammit,” future Dean swore. “I’m not going to lie to you, it’s a pretty messed up situation we got going on.” Dean couldn’t tell if he was pointing at him or at Cass, who was standing behind him. “But believe me, when you need to know something, you will know it. Until then, we all have work to do.”

-

Some time later, Dean, Future Dean, Cass, and the woman who’d tried to slap him earlier had gathered to discuss their next move.

“That’s it. That’s the Colt?” she asked skeptically.

“If anything can kill Lucifer, this is it,” Future Dean replied.

“Great! Do we have anything that can find Lucifer?”

“Are you okay?”

“Oh, we were in Jane’s cabin last night, and apparently we and, uh, Risa have a connection,” Dean explained to future him. Cass, sitting cross-legged on the chair next to future him, dropped her head to her chest and huffed another of those little not-really-amused laughs.

“You want to shut up?” he replied. Dean held his hands up in surrender. “We don’t have to find Lucifer. We know where he is. The demon that we caught last week, he was one of the big guy’s entourage. He knew.”

“So a demon tells you where Satan’s going to be, and you just believe it?”

“Oh, trust me. He wasn’t lying.”

“And you know this how?”

“Our fearless leader, I’m afraid, is all too well schooled in the art of getting to the truth,” Cass explained before Future Dean could.

“Torture? Oh, so we’re torturing again? Oh, that’s good. Classy,” Dean said sarcastically. Future Dean gave Cass a look when she giggled again.

“What? I like past you,” she retorted. Future Dean rolled his eyes and spread a map out on the table.

“Lucifer is here, now. I know the block, and I know the building.” He pointed at a red circle he’d drawn on the map. Cass rested her chin on his elbow as she looked over his arm.

“Oh, good. It’s right in the middle of a hot zone.”

“Crawling with croats, yeah. Are you saying my plan is reckless?” he asked, turning his head to look at her.

“Are you suggesting we walk straight up the driveway, past the demons and the croats and we shoot the devil?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, if you don’t like ‘reckless’, I could use ‘insouciant’, maybe.”

“Are you coming?” Dean thought Cass going was an extremely bad idea, so naturally her reply was “Of course.”

“But why is he?” she continued, nodding in Dean’s direction. “He’s you five years ago. If something happens to him, you’re gone, right?”

“He’s coming,” Future Dean said in a voice that put an end to the discussion.

“Okay!” Cass replied, mock-apologetically. “We’ll, uh, we’ll get the grunts moving.”

“We’re loaded and on the road by midnight!” he called after the two women as they walked out the door.

“Alrighty!” Cass called back, almost sing-songy.

-

He’d helped load up the trucks while trying to process the fact that his brother was not dead as he’d thought, but was, in fact, Satan, and a little before midnight, had gotten into the passenger seat of the truck Cass was driving. She was now wearing jeans and a faded but carefully kept blue jacket- that had probably come from the same person whose sweats she’d been wearing- over her sweater. They drove in silence until she pulled a little orange bottle from one of the cup holders and dry swallowed a small handful of pills.

“Let me see those,” he said, taking them from her hand.

“Want some?” she asked, like she was offering him Tic-Tacs.

“Amphetamines?”

“It’s the perfect antidote to that absinth.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Cass. I’m happy that the stick is out of your ass, but uh, what’s going on?”

She laughed, and her eyes were dead.

“What’s so funny?”

“Dean, I’m not an angel anymore.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I went mortal.”

“What do you mean? How?”

“I think it had something to do with the other angels leaving. When they bailed, my mojo just kind of drained away.” She made an accompanying sound effect and gesture with that hand that wasn’t on the steering wheel. “Now, you know, practically human. I mean, Dean, I’m all but useless. Last year, broke my foot- laid up for two months.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re human.”

She nodded.

“Welcome to the club.”

“Thanks,” she replied sarcastically. “Except I used to belong to a much better club. I’m now powerless. I’m hapless, I’m hopeless. I mean, why the hell not bury myself in drugs and booze and sex? Right? It’s the end, baby! That’s what decadence is for! Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out? That’s just how I roll.”

-

The gun Cass carried looked almost as big as she did, and she carried it with the ease of practice. She, Dean, Risa, and the rest of the grunts followed Future Dean from where they’d stashed the cars to a fenced-in building.

“There. Second floor window. We go in there.”

“Are you sure about this?” Risa asked.

“They’ll never see us coming,” Future Dean assured. “Trust me. Now, weapons check. We’re on the move in five.”

“Hey, uh, me. Can I talk to you for a sec?” Dean requested. When future him stood, Cass stood with him, and before he could walk away, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He kissed her back, harder.

“For luck,” she said, when they pulled apart. She ran in front of Future Dean when he moved toward him, and her small body slammed into him just before the gun she was wearing swung around on its strap and banged into his hip. Not that he was really paying attention, because kissing mostly-human Cass was so very very different than kissing angel Cass had been. This Cass obviously knew what she was doing. But then she pulled away, and with a little smile that almost looked real, she repeated, “For luck,” and left both Deans alone to talk. Dean finally figured out why the blue jacket she was wearing looked familiar.

-

“I’ve got you now, boy!” Zach said menacingly as he advanced on Dean, back on his page in the calendar. And then Dean was somewhere else and missing the end of the balding angel’s rant.

“That’s pretty nice timing, Cass,” he said as he turned. And there she was, in her full- well, diminished, but still technically angelic- glory, trench coat and hair that reached her mid-back neatly in place, still a foot shorter than him but no longer looking like a strong breeze would blow her over.

“We had an appointment,” she said, and the almost-smile was so much more real than the wide, fake grins. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t ever change.” He patted her cheek gently with his other hand, and then dropped them both to his sides.

“How did Zachariah find you?”

“Long story. Let’s just stay away from Jehovah’s Witnesses from now on.”

“What are you doing?” she asked when he pulled out his cell phone.

“Something I should have done in the first place.”

She looked approving as she disappeared.


	17. I Believe the Children Are Our Future

This should be episode 5.6, but I dunno, guys. I just really didn’t feel like writing it. Maybe I’ll come back to it later, but for now, Changing Channels is up next.


	18. Changing Channels

At this point, Dean was fairly sure that literally anything could be coming through the blue doors surrounded by neon Japanese characters, so he was almost pleasantly surprised at who did.

“Cass?”

“Is this another trick?” Sam asked, pained.

“It’s me,” she confirmed. “Uh, what are you doing here?”

“Us? What are you doing here?” Dean asked.

“Looking for you. You’ve been missing for days.”

“So get us the hell out of here then,” Sam said desperately.

“Let’s go,” she replied, raising a hand toward each brother.

But before she could take them anywhere, she disappeared in a burst of static, much like the Trickster had earlier, though less voluntarily.

-

When Cass walked through the door into the brightly colored hotel room, she was looking worse for the wear, blood trickling from her nose and down her forehead.

“You okay?” Dean asked.

“I don’t have much time.”

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“I got out.”

“From where?” Dean asked.

“Listen to me,” she said urgently. “Something is not right. This thing is much more powerful than it should be.”

“What thing? The Trickster?” Dean asked.

“If it is a Trickster.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

Before she could reply to Sam’s question, something invisible threw her into the wall.

And then the Trickster burst through the door with an exuberant “Hello!”

“Thank you! Thank you! Please, stop!” the shorter man continued in a tone that implied the opposite as the audience went wild. Cass sat up with duct tape across her mouth. “Hi Castiel!” he said cheerily when she stood, and flicked her away in static like he had before.

-

“Cass? You okay?” Dean asked when Gabriel- the freaking archangel- had brought her back from where ever he’d stashed her.

“I’m fine,” she said, breathing a little more heavily than normal and staring at her brother. “Hello, Gabriel.”

“Hey, little sister. How’s the search for Daddy going?” His words were light and jesting, but his expression wasn’t. “Let me guess: awful.”

The two angels stared at other, Cass dead serious and Gabriel mocking.

“Okay, we’re out of here,” Dean said after a moment. “Come on, Sam.”

“Uh, okay,” Gabriel called after them as the three not surrounded by holy fire moved toward the door. “Hey, guys. So what? Huh? You’re just going to- you’re going to leave me here forever?”

Dean paused by the door.

“No. We’re not. Because we don’t screw with people the way you do. And for the record, this isn’t about some prize fight between your brothers, or some destiny that can’t be stopped. This is about you being too afraid to stand up to your family!”

He pulled the fire alarm.

“Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

The water that the sprinklers put out got all four of them wet, but put out the circle of fire gradually enough that Sam and Dean had left the warehouse before it was completely out.

Cass stayed a moment longer, looking at her brother, who stared back seriously this time.

“All that stuff he was spouting in there, you think he was telling the truth?” Dean asked Sam as Cass closed the door behind them.

“I think he believes it,” Sam replied

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing. I wish I was back on a TV show.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Cass was quiet as the brothers got into the Impala.


	19. Abandon All Hope

“Got him,” Cass spoke into the phone. “The demon Crowley is making a deal. Even as we speak it’s… going… down.”

“Going down?” Dean repeated, glad she’d gotten the vernacular right, even it sounded really strange in her soft, high voice. “Right. Okay, Huggy Bear, just don’t lose him.”

“I won’t lose him.”

She hung up.

-

A bit later, she was calling Dean again.

“I followed him. It’s not far, but it’s layered in Enochian warding magic. I can’t get in.”

“That’s okay,” he replied. “You did great. We’ll take it from here.”

-

Despite not going as they’d planned, they still successfully retrieved the Colt from Crowley and grouped at Bobby’s to plan their assault on Carthage.

Ellen had apparently decided to take on herself to teach Cass how to drink like a professional, by demonstrating for her, and they were sitting across from each other at a little table that was covered in shot glasses.

“Alright, little lady, go,” she prompted.

Cass knocked the whole row back, one right after the other, gracefully and as easily as if it were water. Ellen looked at her in surprise.

“I think I’m starting to feel something,” was Cass’ reaction to the alcohol. That, and a large smile. Jo grinned back at her and took a sip of her own beer.

“Everybody get in here!” Bobby called from his study. “It’s time for the lineup. Usual suspects in the corner.”

“Oh, come on, Bobby,” Ellen protested. “Nobody wants their picture taken.”

“Shut up. You’re drinkin’ my beer. I’m gonna need something to remember your sorry asses by.”

“It’s always good to have an optimist around,” Ellen laughed.

“Bobby’s right,” agreed Cass, seriously. “Tomorrow we hunt the Devil. This is our last night on Earth.”

And that killed the hesitantly jovial mood in a snap. What would have been a permanent record of their smiles- Sam towering over Cass and Ellen, Dean with a hand on Jo’s shoulder and Jo with a hand on Bobby’s- was much more somber than Bobby had intended.

-

It was raining in Carthage. There were no people out and about, and none of them could get cell signal.

“This place seem a little empty to you?” Ellen asked from the car with the three women in it.

“We’re going to check out the PD. You guys stay here and see if you can find anybody,” Dean said.

“Okay,” Ellen agreed, and the Winchesters pulled away.

“Ever heard of a door handle?” Jo asked Cass, tapping on the window when the angel didn’t move to get out.

“Of course I have,” was her prim reply as Jo turned around to come face to face with her on the sidewalk. Her gaze kept shifting focus to something on and across the street.

“What is it, Cass?” Ellen asked.

“This town’s not empty,” Cass replied. “Reapers.”

“Reapers?” Ellen repeated. “As in more than one?”

“They only gather like this at times of great catastrophe. Chicago Fire, San Francisco Quake. Pompeii,” Cass explained. “Excuse me. I need to find out why they’re here.”

The Harvelles looked at each other as she walked away, peering at creatures they couldn’t see.

Then she was gone.

-

“Hello, sister,” an unfamiliar but recognized voice greeted. Cass looked around at the holy fire that trapped her for a moment before looking up to find the source of the voice. It was quieter than would have been appropriate for the distance they stood apart, had they been human, and Cass found herself replying the same way.

“Lucifer,” she said. After another short pause, he spoke.

“So I take it you’re here with the Winchesters.” His tone was casual, conversational, and she didn’t believe it for a second.

“I- came alone.”

“Loyalty. Hm. Such a nice quality to see in this day and age. Castiel, right?”

She nodded, just barely.

“Castiel. I’m told you came here in an automobile.”

“Yes,” she confirmed hesitantly when he paused pointedly.

“What was that like?”” he asked, and he wrinkled his nose in a very human expression of distaste.

“Um. Slow. Confining.” It was such a trivial thing that she didn’t bother lying.

“What a peculiar thing you are.”

“What’s wrong with your vessel?” she asked, noticing the odd burn-looking marks on the face.

“Yes, um, Nick is wearing a bit thin, I’m afraid. He can’t contain me forever, so-”

“You-” she stepped toward him quickly, before stopping just as fast, remembering, almost belatedly, the holy fire. “You are not taking Sam Winchester. I won’t let you.”

Cass was quickly becoming used to facing off archangels who could destroy her before she got the chance to fight back. She was also learning that it was easier to do so with Dean Winchester at her side.

“Castiel. I don’t understand why you’re fighting me. Of all the angels.”

“You really have to ask?”

“I rebelled, I was cast out. You rebelled, you were cast out. Almost all of Heaven wants to see me dead, and if they succeed, guess what? You’re their new public enemy number one. We’re on the same side, like it or not, so why not just serve your own best interests- which, in this case, just happen to be mine.”

Lucifer’s voice was soft, beguiling, logical, and none of what he’d said was technically a lie. But there was more than one reason to rebel, and therefore more than two sides.

“I’ll die first.” It was spoken softly, but with the same conviction that had had her facing down Raphael in the Prophet’s house.

He looked at her, eyebrows raised, as if judging her sincerity.

“I suppose you will,” he said eventually.

They were silent after that for a while, until a grinning demon joined them.

“Got the Winchesters pinned down, for now at least. What should I do with them?” she asked.

“Leave them alone,” Lucifer replied. Cass noticed that the burns- for lack of better terminology- were not confined to his vessel’s face, and wondered how long it would last.

“I’m sorry, but are you sure? Shouldn’t we-”

“Trust me, child. Everything happens for a reason.”

While his focus was on the demon, Cass examined the pipes overhead.

“Oh, Castiel. You have some time. Time to change your mind?”

She just glared at him.

-

Lucifer had left, and Cass knew that boded ill for any and all the humans, specifically for those attempting to kill him. But it did give her the opportunity to get out of the holy fire. She removed the screws that held the pipe in place, quietly, one at a time, while the demon paced around her.

“You seem pleased.” She spoke to cover the slight sound they made.

“We’re going to win! Can you feel it? You cloud-hopping pansies lost the whole damn universe. Lucifer’s going to take over Heaven. We’re going to Heaven, angel!”

“Strange. Because I heard a different theory from a demon named Crowley.”

That made the smile slip off the demon’s face.

“You don’t know Crowley.”

“He believes Lucifer is just using demons to achieve an end,” Cass said as the screw fell. She started on the next one. “And that, once he does, he’ll destroy you all.”

“You’re wrong. Lucifer is the father of our race. Our creator. Your God may be a deadbeat, but mine, mine walks the Earth.”

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Cass pulled the last screw loose. The pipe swung down, catching the demon off guard and pushing her into the circle. The woman the demon was possessing was 5’4” and wearing high heeled boot to her own vessel’s (hers, now, as Jordan hadn’t returned with her after facing Raphael the first time) 5’1” and flats, but Cass held her immobile and placed a palm on her forehead. The demon went from panicked to laughing when nothing happened.

“You can’t gank demons, can’t you? You’re cut off from the home office, and you ain’t got the juice. So what can you do, you impotent sap?” the demon taunted.

“I can do this,” Cass replied, and dipped her as if they were dancing. But she didn’t stop before the demon hit the floor; rather, she pushed her down harder, onto the ring of fire. The demon was screaming as Cass stepped over her.

She disappeared without a second thought.

-

Cass followed the faint trace left by Lucifer, and appeared a safe distance away, gesturing to the Winchesters to be quiet. She whisked them away before the fallen angel looked over.


	20. The Song Remains the Same

“Hello, Anna,” Cass said softly, appearing behind her.

“Well. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the Winchesters don’t trust me,” her sister said, turning.

“They do. I don’t. I wouldn’t let them come.”

“And why is that?”

“If you’re out of prison, it’s because they let you out; they sent you here to do their dirty work.”

“And what makes you so sure?”

“Because I’ve experienced Heaven’s… persuasion.”

“You mean when you gave me to them.”

Anna’s accusation stung more than Cass was used to, and certainly more than the last time had, in a cabin in the middle of nowhere when she’d thought that killing Anna had been the right thing to do.

“It was a mistake,” Cass replied, not breaking eye contact with her sister. There was a pause. “Anna, whatever they sent you here to do-”

“They didn’t send me,” Anna insisted. “I escaped.”

“No one escapes.”

“All these centuries, and you’re underestimating me now?”

“If you’re not one of them, then what do you want?”

“I want to help.”

“You want to help,” Cass repeated dubiously.

“Yes.”

“Then what are you doing with that knife?”

Anna pulled the knife out her belt before answering.

“What? I’m not allowed to defend myself?”

“Against whom? That blade doesn’t work against angels. It’s not like this one.” Cass silently dropped her blade into reality, but held it down by her side, unwilling to use it except as a last resort. “Maybe you’re not working for Heaven, but there’s something you’re not telling me.” She stared at her former garrison leader, waiting for an answer. She didn’t like the one Anna gave.

“Sam Winchester has to die.” The apology she gave after didn’t sound particularly sincere. “I am sorry, but we have no choice. He’s Lucifer’s vessel.”

“He’s not the only one,” Cass contradicted.

“What? That guy Nick? He’s burning away as we speak. No. Sam is the only vessel that matters. You know what that means. If Lucifer can’t take Sam, his whole plan short circuits. No fight with Michael, no Croatoan virus. The Horsemen go back to their day jobs.”

“Even if you could just… kill… Sam, Satan would just bring him back to life.”

“Not after I scatter his cells across the universe,” was Anna’s prompt, matter-of-fact reply. “’They’ll never find him. Not all of him.”

“We’ll find another way.”

“How’s that going? How’s the Colt working out? Or the search for God? Is anything working?” Anna’s voice was mocking and bitter, but changed to almost pleading. “If you want to stop the devil, this is how.”

“The answer’s still no.” Sam might not have been the Winchester she’d pulled out of Hell, but she wasn’t going to let the angels get him either- and not just for Dean’s sake. “Because Sam is my friend.”

“You’ve changed.” Anna’s voice was softly incredulous.

“It may be too late, but I have,” Cass turned back to her sister. “Anna, we’ve been through much together, but you come near Sam Winchester and I’ll kill you.”

Cass was unsurprised when Anna flew off after that ultimatum.

-

Dean had been reluctant to send Cass in their place to meet Anna, but he was glad she’d gone when she returned and explained the gist of their conversation.

“Really? Anna?” he asked, disappointed, as Cass drew a sigil in chalk on the table in the motel room. She’d pulled her hair back into a bun, the way Jordan had, to keep it from sweeping though the lines. “I don’t believe it,” he muttered.

“It’s true,” Cass replied in that way that meant she still hadn’t really figured out when he was being literal and when he wasn’t.

“So she’s gone all Glenn Close, huh. That’s awesome.”

“Who’s Glenn Close?”

Dean hadn’t actually meant for Cass to hear that, so he answered quickly.

“No one, just this psycho bitch who likes to boil rabbits.”

“So, uh, the p- the uh, plan to kill me, would it actually stop Satan?” Sam asked.

“No, Sam, come on,” Dean answered, not wanting Sam to start thinking like that.

“Cass, what do you think?” Sam insisted on asking anyway. “Does Anna have a point?”

She glanced at Dean before answering.

“No. She’s, uh, Glenn Close.”

Dean spoke before Sam could ask any more questions that Cass would have to lie about, because it was incredibly obvious that she was.

“I don’t get it. We’re looking for the chick who wants to gank Sam? Why poke the bear?”

“Anna will keep trying. She won’t give up until Sam is dead. So we kill her first.”

Cass looked overly blasé about it, in the way that he himself often did when he was trying to avoid thinking too hard about something, and began to chant in Enochian. The low, guttural syllables were followed by a flash of fire in the bowl Cass had put in the middle of the sigil, and then she swayed on her feet, grabbing the chair for support. She was taking softly labored breaths as her face scrunched up in pain and concentration. She spoke again in English after a moment.

“I found her.”

“Where is she?” Dean asked.

“Not where. When.” Cass’ brow was wrinkled in what looked like confusion. “It’s 1978.”

“What?” Sam asked, just as confused. “Why 1978? I wasn’t even born yet?”

“You won’t be. If she kills your parents.”

“What?” Sam said.

“Anna can’t get to you because of me, so she’s going after them.”

Dean’s response was quick.

“Take us back right now.”

“And deliver you right to Anna? I should go alone.”

“They’re our parents, Cass. We’re going.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?” asked Sam, sounding irritated.

“Time travel was difficult, even with the powers of Heaven at my disposal.”

“But you’re cut off,” Sam said, understanding where she was going with this.

“So, what, you’re like a DeLorean without enough plutonium?”

“I don’t understand that reference,” she said, raising her eyebrows as if irritated with his constant pop culture references that she didn’t get. Which, okay, maybe he understood, but that wasn’t his fault. “But I’m telling you, taking this trip- with passengers, no less- it’ll weaken me.”

“They’re our mom and dad. If we can save them- and not just from Anna, if we can set things right, we have to try.”

Dean wasn’t sure how she was going to respond for a moment, but then she began packing a duffel bag with the things that actually worked against angels, including her own angel blade.

“Ready?” she asked when she was finished.

“Not really,” Sam snorted.

“Make sure you bend your knees,” Dean warned his brother.

Cass touched their foreheads, and everything went black.

-

They’d appeared in the middle of a street and almost been hit by several cars that would have been anachronistic, had they still been in their own year, so they figured they’d made it to 1978. But when the two of them had moved to the safety of the sidewalk, they found Cass slumped on the ground against a parked car.

Sam and Dean spoke over each other as they went to see if she was alright.

“Hey, hey, take it easy, alright?”

“I’m fine,” she asserted, despite the blood dripping from her nose. “I’m much better than I expected.”

She began to cough up blood when they tried to help her to her feet, and then passed out.

“She’s breathing. Sort of,” Sam checked. “What do we do?”

Dean picked her up and carried her into the hotel nearby, and paid for what he hoped would be enough time, before warning the apparently dope-selling manager not to disturb her, no matter what.

“Is she alright?” Sam asked when Dean had rejoined him.

“What do I look like, Dr. Angel, Medicine Woman? She’s tough, you know, for a little tiny nerdy chick with wings.”

-

They hadn’t been back in their own year for very long when Sam caught sight of someone behind him in the mirror that definitely hadn’t been in the room before.

“Castiel,” he said, turning to catch her as she swayed. “Hey, hey, whoa, I got you.”

“Cas?” Dean asked, having been alerted by Sam’s words. “You sonuvabitch, you made it.”

She looked at her hands as if she was shocked to find them there.

“I did. I’m very surprised,” she said with a funny half smile and sounding drunk. She looked at each of them, and then collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Whoa, you’re okay,” Sam said as she sunk down. He let go of the arm he was holding on to as Dean braced one arm across her back and the other under her knees and then carried her to one of the beds. She was out cold.

“I really could use that drink now.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed.

“Well,” Dean said as he poured. “This is it.”

“This is what?”

“Team Free Will. One ex-blood junkie, one dropout with six bucks to his name, and Miss Comatose over there. Awesome."


	21. My Bloody Valentine

There was exactly one person Dean knew to ask about possible Enochian tagging, and he had her on speed dial.

“Cass, it’s Dean. Yeah, room 31C, basement level. St. James Medical Cen-” Suddenly he could hear his own voice coming out of a cell phone, and there Cass was, barely a foot in front of him.

“I’m there now,” she said, still into the phone.

“Yeah, I get that.”

“I’m going to hang up, now.”

“Right.”

They looked away quickly and moved to the table, where Cass picked up one of the hearts with her bare hand.

“You’re right, Sam,” she confirmed after a moment. “These are angelic marks. I imagine you’ll find similar marks on the other couple’s hearts as well.”

“So, what are they? I mean, what do they mean?”

“It’s a mark of union. This man and woman were intended to mate.”

“Okay, but who put them there?” Dean asked.

“Well, your people call them ‘cupid’.”

“A what?” asked Sam, surprised. Cass wandered away from the table as she replied.

“What human myth has mistaken for ‘cupid’ is actually a lower order of angel. Technically it’s a cherub, third class.”

“Cherub?” Dean repeated.

“Yeah. They’re all over the world. There are dozens of them.”

“You mean the little flying fat kid in diapers?”

Cass turned back to him, a very familiar squinty-eyed look on her face.

“They’re not incontinent.”

Sam interrupted before there was more confused staring.

“So, anyway, what you’re saying is-”

“What I’m saying is a cupid has gone rogue, and we have to stop him before he kills again,” Cass said vehemently over Sam.

“Naturally,” Sam said sarcastically.

“Of course we do,” Dean added, though not quite sarcastically.

-

“So, what, you just happen to know he likes the cosmos at this place?” Dean asked, doctoring up his cheeseburger.

“This place is a nexus of human reproduction. It’s exactly the kind of… garden the cupid will come to… pollinate.”

Dean nodded, and dropped his hamburger back on his plate without taking a bite.

“Wait a minute. You’re not hungry?” Sam asked in disbelief.

“No,” he denied. Sam just looked at him. “What? I’m not hungry!”

“Then you’re not going to finish that?” Cass asked quickly, and Dean finally realized that she’d been eyeing his burger since the waitress had set it down. She moved his plate toward her and picked up the burger, though she paused before actually taking a bite. “He’s here,” she said, looking around.

“Where?” Sam asked. “I don’t see anything.”

Cass looked like she was watching something they couldn’t see.

“There.”

“You mean the same side of the booth couple over there?”

“Meet me in the back.”

When they looked back from the couple, Cass was gone.

-

When they made their way to the back, Cass was standing alone with one arm outstretched.

“Cass. Where is he?” Sam asked.

“I have him tethered,” she said, before speaking in Enochian. “Manifest yourself,” she said after, switching back to English.

All three of them looked around.

“So where is he?” Dean asked when no bow-and-arrow toting cherubs appeared. No sooner had he spoken than he was grabbed from behind and lifted several inches off the floor, his back popping.

“Here I am!” an unfamiliar voice said, chuckling, and then laughing full on while the other two just looked at him.

“Help!” Dean said, but the only one who responded was whoever was holding him off the floor. He muttered something not quite intelligible, before putting him down and striding over to Cass with an enthusiastic “Hello you!” and hugging her just as tightly. He was taller than her than he was Dean, and so lifted her farther off the ground. He was also naked.

“This is Cupid?” Dean asked.

“Yes,” Cass bit out uncomfortably.

“And look at you, huh?” the cupid said, putting Cass down finally and turning toward Sam.

“No,” he protested, trying to turn around and avoid getting the same treatment. But the cupid appeared in front of him anyway and hugged him forcefully, though he didn’t lift Sam off the ground.

“Is this a fight? Are we in a fight?” Dean asked Cass urgently.

“This is their handshake,” she replied.

“I don’t like it.”

“No one likes it.”

The cupid hummed happily to himself and finally let go of Sam. He turned back to Cass, and Dean, standing next to her, tried very hard to keep his eyes somewhere beside the naked angel.

“Now what can I do for you?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” He sounded like he honestly didn’t know, but that didn’t mean anything.

“Your targets? The ones you’ve marked? They’re slaughtering each other.”

“What?” he asked, the smile sliding off his face. “They are?”

“Listen, Birthday Suit, we know, okay? We know you’ve been flitting around, popping people with your poison arrow, making them murder each other.”

Cass continued for Dean.

“What we don’t know is why.”

“You think that I- well, I don’t know what to say,” he said softly, before bursting into tears.

“Sh- should somebody maybe go talk to him?” Sam asked after a moment as the three of them stood together glancing over at the crying cherub and back.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Give him hell, Cass,” Dean said quickly, cuffing her shoulder. She looked at the two of them before making her way awkwardly over to her brother.

“Um, look,” she started. “We didn’t mean to, um, hurt your feelings.” Sam and Dean nodded encouragingly when she looked back at them. The cherub turned and wrapped her in another bear hug.

“Love is more than a word to me, you know. I love love. I love it, and if that’s wrong, then I don’t want to be right.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Cass agreed, patting him gently on the back. “I, uh, I have no idea what you’re saying.”

He stopped hugging her, but kept his hands on her shoulders. “I was just on my appointed rounds. Whatever my targets to do with after that, that’s nothing to do with me. I- I was following my orders.” He got that I’ve-got-an-idea look. “Please, sister, read my mind. Read my mind, you’ll see.”

Dean couldn’t see Cass’ face, but she went that extra-still that usually came with a searching stare and a little head tilt. She turned back to them and said, “He’s telling the truth.”

He sighed. “Jiminy Christmas, thank you.”

“Wait, you said that you were just following orders. Whose orders?” asked Dean.

“Who’s orders?” he repeated, laughing. “Heaven, silly! Heaven!”

“Why does heaven care if Harry meets Sally?”

“Oh, mostly they don’t. You know, certain bloodlines, certain destinies. Oh, like yours.”

“What?”

“Yeah! The union of John and Mary Winchester, very big deal upstairs. Top priority arrangement.”

“Are you saying that you fixed up our parents?”

“Well, not me, but yeah! It wasn’t easy, either. Ooh, they couldn’t stand each other at first, but when we were done with them, perfect couple.”

“Perfect?”

“Yeah!”

“They’re dead!”

“Well, I’m sorry, but the orders were very clear. You and Sam needed to be born. Your parents were just, uh, meant to be. A match made in heaven!”

When Dean punched the cupid in the face, it felt about the same as it had when he’d hit Cass in Zachariah’s green room: like punching a brick wall. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself. The other angel was gone when he looked up. “Where is he? Where’d he go?”

“I believe you upset him,” Cass answered, except she didn’t actually sound unsure about that.

“Upset him?”

“Dean, enough,” Sam said.

“What?”

“You just punched a cupid.”

“I punched a dick!”

“Um. Are we going to talk about what’s been up with you lately or not?”

“Or not.” He stormed from the room.

-

“What the hell was that?” Dean demanded when what was in the briefcase flared brightly.

“It’s a human soul,” Cass sad softly across the room where she hadn’t been a second before. She had a chocolate muffin in one hand and the kind of white bag in which pastries usually came in her other hand. “It’s starting to make sense.”

“What about that makes sense?” Sam asked.

“And when did you start eating?” Dean continued.

“Exactly!” she said through a mouthful of muffin. “My hunger, it’s a clue, actually.”

“For what?” both Winchesters asked in unison.

“This town isn’t suffering from some love-gone-wrong effect. It’s suffering from hunger. Starvation, to be exact. Specifically, famine.”

Her eyes were uncharacteristically wide as she finished one muffin and pulled another out of the bag, peeling the paper off and dropping it back in the back before taking a large bite.

“Famine?” Sam repeated. She nodded. “As in the Horseman?”

“Great. That’s freaking great,” Dean said.

“I thought Famine meant starvation, like, you know, as in food.”

“Yes, absolutely. But not just food. I mean, everyone seem to be starving for something. Sex, attention, drugs, love.”

“Well, that explains the puppy lovers that Cupid shot up,” Dean thought aloud.

“Right. The cherub made them crave love, and Famine came and made them rabid for it.”

“Okay, but what about you? I mean, since when do angels secretly hunger for chocolate chip muffins?”

“It- it’s my vessel. Jordan. Her, uh, appetite for chocolate has been touched by Famine’s affect,” she said, turning away as she spoke and then taking another bite.

“So Famine just rolls into town and everybody goes crazy?”

Cass swallowed another mouthful of muffin, and her voice got that solemn overtone it got when she was reciting.

“‘And then will come Famine, riding on a black steed. He will ride into the land of plenty. And great will be the Horseman’s hunger, for he is hunger. His hunger will seep out and poison the air.’ Famine is hungry. He must devour the souls of his victims.”

“So that was what was in the briefcase. The Twinkie dude’s soul?”

She nodded. “Lucifer has sent his demons to care for Famine. To feed him, make certain he’ll be ready.”

“Ready for what?” Sam asked.

“To march across the land.

-

Dean didn’t particularly like having to leave his brother locked down in the bathroom and weaponless, but he didn’t want him to get back on demon blood even more, so he did. Cass pushed the wardrobe in front of the door with one hand, and yeah, sometimes he forgot that she was more than his socially inept friend who had the ability to disappear whenever she wanted to, but she was so tiny and ordinary looking that he really couldn’t help himself.

“The guy’s been dry for the last twenty years, but this morning, he left work, went home, and drank himself to death,” Marty said when they got to the morgue, pulling back the sheet so that they could see the ME’s face.

“It’s Famine,” Cass said from beside him, and sometimes Dean really wished that she had some sort of people skills.

“Pardon?” Marty asked, looking at her oddly.

“Would you give us a minute, please?” Dean requested quickly.

“Crap,” he said when the other man was gone. “I really kinda liked this guy.” He looked up at Cass when she placed one thin hand on the dead man’s chest.

“They haven’t harvested his soul yet,” she said.

“Well, if we want to play ‘follow the soul’ to get to Famine, our best shot starts with the Doc here.”

-

Stakeouts were probably the most boring of anything he had to do while hunting, though Cass’ constant popping in and out for more chocolate chocolate chip muffins did ease the boredom just slightly. But it was getting ridiculous.

“Are you serious?”

“These make me very happy,” was her only reply, and to be fair she did look a lot happier than he’d seen her in a while. There were a lot of things worse than muffins, and he doubted that even with limited angel mojo she’d go the same way Twinkie dude had gone.

“How many is that?”

“Lost count. It’s in the low hundreds.”

He whistled, and wondered if it would be possible for her to eat her out body wait, as she seemed to be coming close.

“What I don’t understand is, where’s your hunger, Dean?”

“Huh?”

“Well, slowly but surely, everyone in this town is falling prey to Famine, but so far you seem… unaffected.”

He shrugged.

“Hey, when I want a drink, I get a drink. When I want sex, I go get it. Same goes for a sandwich, or a fight.”

“So, you’re saying you’re just well adjusted?”

“God, no. I’m just well fed.”

She took another bite before nodding her head at the door.

“There.”

-

They followed the man with the briefcase to a restaurant, and parked the car on the far side of the parking lot.

“Demons,” Dean surmised. “You want to go over the plan again?”

Cass just toyed with one of the wrappers, smoothing out the wrinkles.

“Hey, Betty Crocker, the plan?”

She put the empty paper in the bag with the others as she spoke.

“I take the knife, I cut off the ring hand of Famine, and I meet you back here in the parking lot,” she parroted back.

“Well that sounds foolproof,” Dean muttered to himself. She was gone when he looked back.

-

Cass was kneeling on the floor and stuffing handfuls of he didn’t even want to know what into her mouth when he made his way to Famine, who was trying to convince him that he didn’t have a soul when Sam burst in, his mouth covered in blood. He took the opportunity when Sam started to exorcise the demons rather than suck them dry to duck out of their grasp and grab the knife from the floor where Cass had dropped it. Getting Famine’s ring was easy after Sam had pulled the demons he’d just consumed back out of him, and then they all three got out of there as fast as they could.

-

“You know that’s not him in there, not really,” Cass said gently as they stood outside Bobby’s panic room, listening to Sam’s voice beg them, plead with them by name.

“Yeah, I know,” Dean said, taking another drink.

“Dean, Sam just has to get it out of his system. Then he’ll be-”

“Listen, I just, uh, I just need to get some air.”

Cass watched him as he walked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all I have pre-written, so from now on, chapters will be added as I write them.


	22. Chapter 22

Dean wasn’t sure what was going on, but he sure as hell wasn’t having a good day, even after setting off fireworks with a 13-year-old Sammy who smiled like he hadn’t seen in years.

“Dean?” a familiar voice asked from inside the Impala, barely audible over the static that was also issuing from the radio.

“Cass?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

Dean got back in the car.

“You gotta stop poking around in my dreams. I need some me-time.”

“Listen to me very closely,” she insisted. “This isn’t a dream.”

“Then what is it?”

“Deep down you already know.”

He thought of the motel room that had flashed through his mind while the fireworks flashed in the sky.

“I’m dead,” he said softly in realization.

“Condolences.”

Dean might have corrected her not particularly sincere-sounding phrase, but he was too busy trying to figure out what was going on and where he was.

“Heaven,” was the answer Cass gave through the radio when he asked.

“Heaven?” he repeated skeptically. “How did I get to heaven?”

“Please, listen. This spell, this connection, it’s difficult to maintain-”

“Wait, if I’m in heaven, then where’s Sam?”

“What do you see?”

“What do you mean, what do I see?”

“Some people see a tunnel, or a river. What do you see?”

“Nothing! My dash, I’m in my car, I’m on a road.”

“Alright, a road. For you, it’s a road. Follow it, Dean. You’ll find Sam. Follow the road-”

Anything else she was going to say was lost in static, and the radio shut off.

-

Sam calling into question Dean’s sanity wasn’t something new, nor something that was likely to stop anytime soon, but he knew what he was doing, and sure enough, Cass’ voice filled the room. The family eating Thanksgiving dinner didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary was happening.

“I can hear you,” she said, and her face flickered onto the television.

“Cass, hey. So, uh, I found Sam, but something just happened. There was this weird beam of light.”

“Don’t go into the light.”

“Okay, thanks, Carol Anne,” he said sarcastically. “What was it?”

The constantly flickering screen changed again, and all they could see of Cass was an extreme close up of her lips.

“Not what, who. Zachariah. He’s searching for you.”

It flicked back to her whole face.

“And if he finds us?” Sam asked.

“You can’t say ‘yes’ to Michael and Lucifer if you’re dead, so Zachariah needs to return you to your bodies.”

“Great! Problem solved!” exclaimed Sam.

“No, you don’t understand. Y- uh- you’re behind the wall. This is a rare opportunity.”

“For what?” Dean asked.

“You need to find an angel. His name is Joshua.”

“Hey, man, no offense, but we are kinda ass-full of angels, okay? You find him.”

“I can’t. I can’t return to heaven.”

There was a bit of a pause after that before Sam spoke.

“So what’s so important about Joshua?”

“The rumor is- he talks to God.”

“And? So?”

“You think maybe, just maybe, we should find out what the hell God has been saying?”

Dean was almost positive that he’d never heard the petite angel swear before.

“Jeez. Touchy,” he said in an undertone to Sam.

“Please. I just need you to follow the road.”

“What road?” Sam asked.

“It’s called the access mundi; it’s a path that runs through heaven. Different people see it as different things. For you, it’s two-lane asphalt. The road will lead you to the garden. You’ll find Joshua there, and Joshua… can take us to God. The garden. Please, hurry.”

The television flickered off.

-

When he woke up, the first thing Dean did after making sure Sammy was okay was call Cass- not that he particularly wanted to tell her what Joshua had said, but she needed to know.

“Maybe he… maybe Joshua was lying,” she said softly as the brothers packed.

Dean looked up from his bag, but Sam spoke before he could work out what to say.

“I don’t think he was, Cass. I’m sorry.”

Cass stood, and looked up at the ceiling.

“You son of a bitch,” she said, and whoops, not the ceiling. Her voice was low, emotional. “I believed in you.” After a moment, she turned around and walked over to Dean, pulling something from under the scarf around her neck. “I don’t need this anymore.” He caught what she’d tossed him, and it untangled into amulet he no longer felt naked without. “It’s worthless.”

Sam tried to call her back when made to leave, but there was the sound of wings and she was gone.

A minute later, Sam paused by the door before following Dean out, little bits of metal poking the inside of his clenched fist.


End file.
